Caught the hog market action on Friday and it's been pretty interesting. Lean hog futures were creeping higher across the board, up around 15 cents in the front contracts. The USDA had the national base price sitting at $90.33 that morning, which lines up pretty close with where the CME Lean Hog Index landed at $90.55.

What caught my eye though is the pork cutout value dropped 44 cents to $98.78 per cwt, but some of the primals like belly and rib actually moved higher. Mixed signals there. Thursday's slaughter came in at 491,000 head, so we're looking at 1.944 million for the week. That's down from last week and notably below year-ago levels.

Futures are pricing in some optimism - April hog contracts up to $95.80, May sitting at $100.55, and June out at $109.975. The hog market's been technically strong lately, and these numbers suggest traders are still seeing support underneath. Curious to see if this holds up or if we get any pullback.