Caught some weakness in the hog market on Thursday. Lean hog futures dropped 47 cents to hit $1.40 in the front month, though back months managed small gains of 7 to 32 cents. USDA had the national base hog price at $89.74 that afternoon, while the CME Lean Hog Index was tracking $90.18 as of early March. What caught my eye was the export data - pork sales came in at 36,103 MT for the week ending February 26, down 15.3% from the previous week. Mexico's still the main buyer at 22,400 MT but volumes are definitely softening. Actual shipments weren't much better, dropping 7.9% week over week to 37,842 MT. The pork carcass cutout value did manage to climb 60 cents to $99.22 per cwt on the Thursday afternoon report, so there's some support there. Slaughter numbers came in at 491,000 head for the day, bringing the weekly total to 1.944 million. That's down 7,000 head from the previous week and 132,550 below the same week last year. The hog futures closed out the day with April contracts down $1.40 at $95.675, May off $1.20 at $100.525, and June losing $1.30 to $109.90. Seems like the market's pricing in softer demand, but those carcass values suggest there's still some floor underneath hog prices.