Livestocks Extend Declines

Livestock futures prices fell sharply in trading Friday on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, smothered by the continuing double-bind of large supplies and weak demand.

Everything but frozen pork bellies hit contract lows and closed near session-lows.

“We’re involved with a major bloodbath here and it’s not pretty,” said Philip Stanley, a livestock analyst with Thomson McKinnon Securities Inc. in Chicago.

“You have heavy supplies for the cattle and poor demand for the meat, and consequently prices continue to go lower, with no bottom in sight yet,” he said.

Despite the fact that hog slaughters seem to have slackened, “no one wants the stuff,” Stanley said.

“Pressure from the wholesale pork market has weighed on the market,” he said, adding that the price of wholesale loins plunged $30 in the past two weeks.

Further pressure came from the International Trade Commission’s ruling Thursday that there will be duty assessed on pork entering the United States from Canada, Stanley said. “That was a major slap in the face to the pork producer in this country.”