Hog futures got hit pretty hard on Thursday. Lean hog leg contracts were down 47 cents to $1.40 in the near term, though back months managed some small gains between 7 to 32 cents. USDA had the national base hog price sitting at $89.74 that afternoon.

The CME Lean Hog Index came in 34 cents higher on March 3, hitting $90.18. What caught my attention was the export data though - pork sales dropped 15.3% week over week with 36,103 MT moving out. Mexico was still the biggest buyer at 22,400 MT but Japan only grabbed 3,800 MT. Shipments fell 7.9% to 37,842 MT, so the momentum definitely cooled off.

On the processing side, USDA's pork carcass cutout value jumped 60 cents to $99.22 per cwt, but some of the primals like rib and picnic were tracking lower. Thursday's federally inspected slaughter came in at 491,000 head, bringing the weekly total to 1.944 million. That's 7,000 head below the previous week and about 132,550 head down from last year at this time.

Looking at the contract closes, April hog leg futures dropped $1.40 to $95.675, May was down $1.20 to $100.525, and June fell $1.30 to $109.90. The overall weakness in the hog market seems pretty consistent across the curve right now.