Prices rise across a broad area, with gains marked in red; hog prices nationwide are finally staging a dramatic comeback! According to monitoring data from Zhuhodo, the national average price of three-way crossbred hogs on 2026-11-13 was 8.71 yuan/kg, up 0.13 yuan/kg from the previous day. Across the country, hog prices in many areas in both the north and south have reversed their previous one-way downward trend. The market has seen a short-term rebound after bottoming out, offering a brief reprieve to producers who have been under pressure for a long time. However, industry insiders generally caution that this rebound is more a sentiment-driven correction after an oversold decline. Whether hog prices can continue to rebound, and how far they might rise, remains to be verified by the market.
Looking at the factors driving this round of price increases, the first is the concentrated release of producers’ reluctance to sell and determination to support prices. Hog prices had continued to weaken and fallen to a new low for the year, intensifying farmers’ resistance to selling. At the same time, some leading companies adjusted their marketing schedules and voluntarily reduced sales volumes. This eased short-term pressure from concentrated marketings and supported a stabilization and recovery in prices. Second, as temperatures gradually fall, expectations for preserved-meat stocking are slowly building. End-consumer demand for pork shows signs of a marginal recovery, and downstream slaughterhouses have become slightly more active in stocking up, driving procurement prices higher.
However, it should be noted that “sentiment” cannot fully absorb production capacity. Whether hog prices can continue to rebound, and how far they can rise, will ultimately depend on the interplay of supply and demand. On the supply side, marketing plans for hogs at sample companies monitored by industry organizations show that planned hog marketings in 11 are continuing to increase compared with actual marketings in 10, indicating that supply remains available. On the demand side, preserved-meat stocking is still in its early stages. This is a seasonal marginal improvement, not an explosive increase; overall downstream demand remains weak, and slaughterhouses are still not strongly inclined to stock up on a large scale.
As for the outlook for the market, the prevailing industry view is that prices may remain volatile but relatively firm in the short term, although the rebound has limited room to run. Overall, the market is still in a bottoming-out phase, and volatility risks should not be overlooked. After a prolonged period of losses, many farmers are particularly susceptible to being swayed by short-term price increases and may recklessly hold back pigs in the hope of selling at higher prices. This is precisely the biggest risk at this stage.
During the prolonged bottom phase of the pig cycle, market speculation is likely to intensify further, and pig prices may fluctuate more frequently. Farmers should distinguish between rebounds driven by short-term sentiment and genuine turning points in the cycle’s fundamentals. They should not hold back pigs or engage in secondary fattening simply because prices have turned higher, mistaking a temporary recovery for a trend reversal. In a market full of uncertainty, making rational decisions about when to sell and managing cash flow well are key.