Analyst predicts $10 hogs later this year

Swine slaughterhouses are already running at capacity prompting analyst predictions that hog prices could plummet to $10 per hundredweight later this year, reminiscent of the liquidation of 1998.

Credit Suisse food stocks analyst Robert Moskow, said in a note to investors that more hogs will go to slaughter this autumn because the herd is too large, citing USDA's June Hogs and Pigs report that showed a 5.8 percent increase in the herd. By comparison, market analysts had expected the report to show about a 4.6 percent increase.

Sow farrowings in the March-May period are up 2 percent over the same period last year, "which means the pig crop will be bigger, not smaller in the autumn" he stated.

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