L · Analytic
LH Supply Census Composite
Three physical axes of US pork supply — the futures curve, the hog-corn feed margin, and the Canadian border — blended into one daily read, benchmarked against the CME Lean Hogs tradable return.
At a glance
Current Reading
-0.600
Composite sits at -0.60, deep in the STRONG BEARISH band
Playbook State
Strong Bear
STRONG BEARISH
Days in State
1
Current strong bear band entered October 29, 2026
Next Refresh
Nightly
The composite refreshes every evening after CME publishes the Lean Hogs settle
As of 2026-10-29. Updated nightly.
OBJECTIVE
Think of US pork supply as a system with three physical levers. The first is the shape of the CME Lean Hogs futures curve — whether the market is paying up for front-month pork or for pork one contract out, roughly four to nine weeks forward. The second is the hog-to-corn price ratio — a proxy for feeding margins, which drive the producer herd-expansion and liquidation cycles. The third is the Canadian border — the year-over-year change in Canadian live-swine imports from Manitoba into US finishing yards, running on a five-to-six-month lag to the US slaughter mix.
Each lever reads a different physical axis. The curve is market structure. The margin is economics. The border is a five-to-six-month supply pipeline. These are not three flavors of the same signal — they are three fundamentally different things that happen to all live under the same umbrella called "US pork supply." The playbook blends them at 50 percent curve, 28 percent feed margin, 22 percent border, with the two largest inputs sign-flipped so wide contango and wide margins both read bearish forward Lean Hogs — the empirical direction. When the three inputs agree, the composite pushes to a tail and historically a meaningful 60-day Lean Hogs move follows. When they disagree, the composite moderates to the middle and tells you to wait.
LIVE CHART
36 years of the LH Supply Census Composite, built from three physical supply axes.
The blue line is the composite reading on the left axis. The orange line is Lean Hogs futures (the thing you care about) on the right axis. The pattern to watch for is blue-line pushes above +0.5 or below -0.5 — those are the moments the three inputs have genuinely aligned and the historical record says a meaningful forward move tends to follow. Today the blue line is at -0.60, deep in the STRONG BEARISH band, just one trading day after pushing out of a 10-day NEUTRAL run.
COMPOSITE
-0.600 / tanh
STATE
Strong Bear
PHASE
0
FWD 60d
-4.38% (baseline +0.05%)
SAMPLE N
9,050 days
TODAY’S PLAYBOOK READING
STATE
Strong Bear
READING
Composite at -0.60, STRONG BEARISH, one trading day in. Transitioned yesterday out of a ten-day NEUTRAL run as the futures curve and hog-corn feed margin both intensified bearish in the same session. Two of three members are decisively aligned to the bearish side; the Canadian border input is near zero.
WHY IT MATTERS
Three physical supply axes — curve shape, feed margin, border flows — blended into one daily number and benchmarked against the CME Lean Hogs tradable return (not a roll-corrupted nominal front-nearby series, which inflated yesterday’s reported edges by roughly 10x). The honest numbers: rank correlation with fwd60d tradable returns is +0.156, highly statistically significant. The strong-bearish band historically delivers an average fwd60d of -4.38% versus a baseline of +0.43% mean (median -0.22%) — a modest but real edge at the tail.
POSTURE
Sized bearish lean from the composite today. The strong-bearish band is the composite’s highest-conviction state, and we are one day into it. Stand with the composite or against it on your own view; the two largest inputs — curve at 50% and feed margin at 28% — are both pulling the same bearish direction, which is the alignment pattern the playbook is designed to size on.
WHAT THE CHART SHOWS
Composite at -0.60, STRONG BEARISH, one trading day in. Transitioned yesterday out of a 10-day NEUTRAL run (2026-10-15 through 2026-10-28) as the futures curve and hog-corn feed margin both intensified bearish in the same session. The composite reached its highest-conviction band in a single step — not from random drift but from two large inputs flipping at once.
TOP INPUTS FIRING
- Front-Second Basis (Z3484, 50% anchor) Reading +0.628, wide contango. Polarity -1 flips to contribution -0.314 bearish. The anchor is pulling the composite bearish today.
- Hog-Corn Ratio (Z6630, 28%) Reading +0.985 wide margin. Polarity -1 flips to contribution -0.276 bearish. The second-biggest input pulling bearish — producers in expansion mode.
- Canadian Feeder Pigs (Z6575, 22%) Reading -0.044, essentially flat. Contribution -0.010. Border flows tracking 5-year normal.
THE TAKEAWAY
What this means for you today
IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A VIEW ON LEAN HOGS
The composite is giving you a sized bearish signal today, and it is giving it with real alignment. Two of the three members — the futures curve and the hog-corn feed margin — are both reading bearish at the same time, which is the setup the playbook is designed to catch. If your own view coming from slaughter counts, cold storage, basis, or seasonality is also bearish, the composite is confirming. If your view is bullish, the composite is actively disagreeing with you through its two largest inputs, and the disagreement is coming from an aligned supply story: comfortable curve + expansion-signaling feed margin. The playbook will not tell you to abandon your view; it is asking you to size appropriately given that 78% of the composite’s weight is pulling the other way.
HOW TO TRADE THE COMPOSITE
At the tails, as a sized read. The composite reached its STRONG BEARISH band yesterday — a band that historically has preceded an average fwd60d tradable return of -4.38% on CME Lean Hogs, roughly 4.4 percentage points below the baseline across all trading days (+0.43% mean, -0.22% median). That is a modest but real edge for a 60-day horizon. The transition from a ten-day neutral run to STRONG BEARISH in one step is also the type of pattern worth paying attention to — the composite moved sharply because two large inputs flipped bearish in the same session, not because of random drift. Watch over the coming days whether the curve stays in wide contango and the feed margin stays wide; if either compresses toward neutral, the composite will moderate back toward the middle. If both hold, the sized bearish lean persists.
THE REGIME MAP
The states, forward returns and sample share
Five bands sit on this composite, measured against the CME Lean Hogs back-adjusted tradable return. When the composite is in STRONG BULLISH (above the top threshold, about 10.6% of trading days historically), the following 60 trading days have averaged +3.10% on Lean Hogs — an edge of about +2.7 percentage points above the baseline of +0.43%. BULLISH (19.1% of days) has averaged +0.95% fwd60d. NEUTRAL (41.8% of days) has averaged -0.32%. BEARISH (22.6%) has averaged -2.60%. STRONG BEARISH — where we are today, 5.9% of days historically — has averaged -4.38% fwd60d, an edge of about -4.4 percentage points below baseline. The baseline across all 8,900+ trading days is +0.43% mean, -0.22% median. The spread between the two outer tails is roughly 7.5 percentage points — modest, real, and honestly measured against the price series a futures trader would actually own.
| State | Phase | Share | Fwd 60d | HAC t | Edge vs baseline | Last firings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strong bullish | +1 | 10.6% (958 d) | +3.10% | +3.05pp | Aug 2026, Aug 2022, Aug 2022 | |
| Bullish | +1 | 19.1% (1730 d) | +0.95% | +0.90pp | Jul 2026, Dec 2025, Dec 2025 | |
| Neutral | 0 | 41.8% (3783 d) | -0.32% | -0.37pp | Oct 2026, Jun 2026, Apr 2026 | |
| Bearish | -1 | 22.6% (2049 d) | -2.60% | -2.66pp | Jun 2026, Jun 2026, Apr 2026 | |
| Strong bearish TODAY | -1 | 5.9% (530 d) | -4.38% | -4.43pp | Oct 2026, Jun 2026, May 2025 |
Thresholds (plus/minus 0.2 for the NEUTRAL band boundaries) are tuned on the full historical distribution of the composite from 1990 forward. Band breakpoints are expressed on the composite bounded plus-or-minus-one scale. Positive values correspond to bullish-Lean-Hogs forward returns; negative values correspond to bearish forward returns.
THE TRACK RECORD
State changes
| State | Start | End | Duration | Fwd 60d SPY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Negative | 10/29/2024 | 12/10/2024 | 30d | +3.91% |
| Neutral | 12/11/2024 | 12/13/2024 | 3d | -8.00% |
| Negative | 12/16/2024 | 01/08/2025 | 16d | -6.53% |
| Neutral | 01/09/2025 | 01/09/2025 | 1d | -14.47% |
| Negative | 01/10/2025 | 02/03/2025 | 16d | -14.47% |
| Neutral | 02/04/2025 | 02/04/2025 | 1d | -7.20% |
| Negative | 02/05/2025 | 03/19/2025 | 30d | -6.20% |
| Neutral | 03/20/2025 | 03/21/2025 | 2d | +6.58% |
| Negative | 03/24/2025 | 03/24/2025 | 1d | +4.07% |
| Neutral | 03/25/2025 | 04/07/2025 | 10d | +3.27% |
| Positive | 04/08/2025 | 04/08/2025 | 1d | +25.02% |
| Neutral | 04/09/2025 | 04/14/2025 | 4d | +13.07% |
| Negative | 04/15/2025 | 06/13/2025 | 42d | +16.22% |
| Neutral | 06/16/2025 | 06/16/2025 | 1d | +9.11% |
| Negative | 06/17/2025 | 06/17/2025 | 1d | +10.02% |
| Neutral | 06/18/2025 | 07/15/2025 | 18d | +10.62% |
| Positive | 07/16/2025 | 08/15/2025 | 23d | +7.52% |
| Neutral | 08/18/2025 | 09/12/2025 | 19d | +6.17% |
| Positive | 09/15/2025 | 10/14/2025 | 22d | +3.35% |
| Neutral | 10/15/2025 | 11/18/2025 | 25d | +4.51% |
| Positive | 11/19/2025 | 11/19/2025 | 1d | +3.57% |
| Neutral | 11/20/2025 | 12/02/2025 | 8d | +4.90% |
| Positive | 12/03/2025 | 12/03/2025 | 1d | -0.52% |
| Neutral | 12/04/2025 | 12/09/2025 | 4d | +0.11% |
| Positive | 12/10/2025 | 12/10/2025 | 1d | -1.51% |
| Neutral | 12/11/2025 | 01/12/2026 | 21d | -1.86% |
| Negative | 01/13/2026 | 02/12/2026 | 22d | -2.06% |
| Neutral | 02/13/2026 | 02/17/2026 | 2d | +8.28% |
| Negative | 02/18/2026 | 03/12/2026 | 17d | +9.02% |
| Neutral | 03/13/2026 | 04/06/2026 | 16d | +11.29% |
| Negative | 04/07/2026 | 04/09/2026 | 3d | +12.98% |
| Neutral | 04/10/2026 | 04/15/2026 | 4d | +9.70% |
| Negative | 04/16/2026 | 06/15/2026 | 42d | +7.15% |
| Neutral | 06/16/2026 | 06/16/2026 | 1d | +1.86% |
| Negative | 06/17/2026 | 07/15/2026 | 19d | +2.69% |
| Positive | 07/16/2026 | 10/14/2026 | 64d | +3.71% |
| Neutral | 10/15/2026 | 10/28/2026 | 10d | |
| Negative | 10/29/2026 | 10/29/2026 | 1d |
Scroll inside the table for the full history. Forward 60-day SPY is measured from each run’s start date; a reader cannot trade off a start-date they only identify in hindsight, so this is a transparency log, not an alpha claim. Asterisked (*) returns are partial. The run is less than 60 trading days old. The full 60-day comparable fills in as more data arrives.
What this measures
Three physical axes of US pork supply, each read daily off its own data pipeline, blended into one composite number: the CME Lean Hogs futures curve shape (anchor 50 percent), the hog-corn feed margin (28 percent), and year-over-year Canadian feeder-pig imports (22 percent). Each input is standardized to a plus-or-minus-one scale, weighted, polarity-adjusted, and summed. The composite refreshes nightly after the daily inputs settle. Benchmarked against the CME Lean Hogs back-adjusted tradable return (the series a futures trader would own, with contract roll gaps removed).
Why it matters
Why this playbook earns its weight
The three inputs are not three flavors of the same signal — they are three fundamentally different physical axes of US pork supply. The curve is market structure. The feed margin is economics. The border is a five-to-six-month biological supply pipeline. Each one answers a different question with a different data cadence. That near-orthogonality is why the composite’s rank correlation with forward Lean Hogs tradable returns is +0.156 — one of the stronger blended composites in the Lean Hogs complex, and higher than any single input taken alone. When independent signals agree, they are doing real work; the composite captures that agreement in a single daily number.
How to read the composite in one sentence
Positive numbers lean bullish on Lean Hogs over the next 60 trading days. Negative numbers lean bearish. The size of the lean matters: readings above the STRONG BULLISH threshold have historically delivered an average 60-day Lean Hogs tradable return of about +3.1 percent, versus a long-run baseline of about +0.05 percent mean (median -0.58 percent). Readings below the STRONG BEARISH threshold have delivered about -4.4 percent on average. The spread between the two tails is about 7.5 percentage points, modest but real and statistically significant across more than 8,900 trading days — which is why the signal is best used as a sized directional read when it reaches a tail, and as a watch indicator when it sits in the middle.
The honest limitation
The composite is strongest at its tails. In the NEUTRAL band (between -0.2 and +0.2) — which is where we are today and where the composite sits most of the time by design — the forward edge over baseline is small. The playbook does its best work when the four inputs genuinely agree and push the composite above +0.2 or below -0.2. In the middle, which is a common and correct resting state, it is telling you to stand pat and watch for the next alignment. A reader expecting a sized directional call every day will be disappointed; a reader who treats the composite as a "when it is loud, it means something" signal will find the historical fit lives up to the claim.
GO DEEPER
Three levers, one number — read the full playbook brief
Twelve-minute PDF: the three signature cases, the state-conditional edge table, the hog-corn / curve / border mechanics, and the honest tradable-benchmark methodology. Written for traders who want the forensics behind the daily reading.
Related Analytics
Not investment advice · The analysis on this page is informational and educational. Signal readings, historical case figures, and empirical statistics are derived from publicly available data and are provided without warranty. Hypothetical performance results have inherent limitations, including the benefit of hindsight. Readers who intend to trade should consult a licensed investment professional and see the research brief for the full disclaimer.
Last refreshed Oct 30, 2026 01:52 PM ET