By Kelsey Gee

 

CHICAGO--U.S. packer bids for hogs are mostly steady with Wednesday's sales on Friday, with most plants well-supplied for production needs for the remainder of the week.

Bids match prices paid in the sales prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, and Wednesday's top prices ranged from $35 to $41 per hundredweight on a live basis, and from $47 to $52 per hundredweight on a carcass basis--a form of pricing that accounts for the meat yielded from the animal.

Bids for livestock have remained in a narrow range in the past week as packers restricted production around the Thanksgiving holiday, with most plants remaining dark on Thursday. Packers Friday are offering steady prices in most regions, after securing the bulk of the hogs needed for the weekend's production earlier in the week.

Projections for Saturday's load of hogs to be processed total 373,000 head, up around 170,000 head from last weekend's estimated production, as plants add extra shifts to make up for the reduced slaughter on Thursday. For the week, an estimated 2.121 million head are expected to have been processed.

Last week, U.S. pork output was estimated to have climbed to 510.5 million pounds, up 6% from this time last year, and total year-to-date production has surpassed 2014 levels by 7.1%. The total number of hogs processed last week exceeded the same period last year by 7%.

The last available Wall Street Journal packer margin index for Wednesday was positive $36.81 per head, compared with positive $40.25 a head on Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday the wholesale pork price, known in the industry as the cutout, slid $1.75 to $71.31 per hundred pounds, based on Omaha, Neb., price quotes.

 

Write to Kelsey Gee at kelsey.gee@wsj.com

 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 27, 2015 09:56 ET (14:56 GMT)

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