The morning pork cutout value Friday, Jan. 2, was $83.77 per cwt. FOB the plants, down $3.37 from the week before, but up 76 cents from a year ago. Loins and bellies were lower last week. Ham prices were higher.

The national average negotiated carcass price for direct delivered hogs on the morning report Jan. 2 was $72.86 per cwt., down 10 cents from the previous Friday and down $3.41 from a year ago. The Western Corn Belt and Iowa-Minnesota both averaged $72.95 per cwt. on the Jan. 2 morning report. There was no negotiated carcass price reported for the Eastern Corn Belt.

Peoria had a top live price Jan. 2 of $50 per cwt. The top price for interior Missouri live hogs was $53.50 per cwt., which is the same as the previous Friday.

The morning’s average hog carcass price Jan. 2 was only 87.0 percent of the pork cutout value.

Hog slaughter last week totaled 1.998 million head, up 15.0 percent from Christmas week and up 0.3 percent from New Year’s week last year. This is the first week since Feb. 22 with hog slaughter above the year-ago level. Since the first of December, barrow and gilt slaughter has been 1.2 percent lower than implied by the heavy weight inventory in USDA’s December Hogs and Pigs report.

Third quarter 2014 hog slaughter was down 7.6 percent, due largely to high death loss last winter caused by the PED virus. If as expected, last summer’s death loss from PED virus was modest, hog slaughter during the first quarter of 2015 could be equal to or above the year-ago level.

The average live slaughter weight of barrows and gilts in Iowa-Minnesota last week, 286.9 pounds, was up 1.7 pounds from a week earlier and up 4.6 pounds from a year ago. That was the 91st consecutive week with weights above the year-earlier level. For all of 2014, the Iowa-Minnesota slaughter weight series averaged a record 284.4 pounds, up 8.5 pounds from the year before.

The February lean hog futures contract closed Jan. 2 at $81.30 per cwt., down 25 cents for the week. April hog futures ended the week at $83.50 per cwt., down 70 cents from the week before. May hogs gained $1.00 last week to close at $88.70 per cwt. The June contract ended the week at $92.00 per cwt.

Corn futures were sharply lower last week. The March contract lost 19 cents to end at $3.9575 per bushel. May corn futures ended the week at $4.045, and July corn settled at $4.1125/bushel.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Ron Plain and Scott Brown may write to them in care of this publication.