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LH Dollar Export Competitiveness

The year-over-year rate of change in the US Dollar Index, inverted, as the macro tide that pushes US pork export demand up or down for the next quarter.

At a glance

As of Oct 30, 2026. Updated nightly.

OBJECTIVE

The United States is the world’s second-largest pork exporter. Mexico, Japan, China, Korea, and Canada together absorb roughly a quarter of annual US pork production, and when the dollar weakens year over year the local-currency price of a US ham or belly falls at the retailer level and export order books fill faster. This signal reads that macro tide. On May 30, 2023, as the Dollar Index rolled over from the mid-2022 highs and the signal entered its weak-dollar regime, the composite registered plus 0.530 and lean hog futures rose 37.1 percent over the next 60 trading days as Mexico-destined volumes rebuilt. On December 31, 2013, with the dollar at a cyclical low and the 2014 Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus about to tighten US hog supply, the composite entered its weak-dollar regime and lean hogs rose 34.7 percent over the next 60 days as the macro tailwind compounded with the supply shock. Today the composite reads -0.812 as of Oct 30, 2026, in Moderate-Negative state 110 trading days running. The dollar’s year-over-year rate of change has remained in the dollar-strength regime through most of 2026, which the signal reads as an export headwind for US pork. Here is the twist. This is a slow signal, not a tactical trigger. It does not move with the morning cash hog quote. It moves with the dollar cycle, which runs on multi-year arcs. The weak-dollar regime, which has run across 39 percent of all trading days in the sample, has delivered mean forward 60-day lean hog returns of plus 2.39 percent, which is 2.14 pp above the long-run baseline. Read on for three cases that frame how to read this signal, the state-conditional evidence, and the four caveats including what the signal missed in the March 2020 pandemic.

LIVE CHART

STATE-CONDITIONAL EDGE

THE TAKEAWAY

THE REGIME MAP

8,646 trading days observable fwd60d. Baseline mean plus 0.26 percent, median minus 0.30 percent, std 12.27 percent, pct_neg 51.4 percent.

The historical pattern

THE TRACK RECORD

Scroll inside the table for the full history. Forward 60-day LH 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.

Each trading day the US Dollar Index continuous close prints at the Intercontinental Exchange. The signal computes the trailing 252-day percent change, z-scores on a trailing 504-day window with a 126-day minimum population, applies tanh to bound the result into a scale from minus one to plus one, then negates the result. A weakening dollar prints positive in the composite. A strengthening dollar prints negative. The polarity is trend-following: positive composite correlates with bullish forward lean hogs through the pork export transmission mechanism.

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 31, 2026 12:34 AM ET