← All Products · Product Guide

Live Hog Futures (LH)

The Dalian Commodity Exchange's Live Hog futures (LH) offer global retail traders direct exposure to China's massive pork market, the largest and most price-sensitive in the world. As China's first-ever live animal futures contract, LH has rapidly built explosive trading volume, creating a uniquely liquid arena for agricultural commodities. If you trade softs and ags or simply want to diversify into high-volume Asian markets, this guide breaks down exactly how the LH contract works and why it matters.

Contract Specifications

Specifications are reference values compiled from exchange publications. Margins and price limits adjust dynamically — the exchange's latest announcements prevail.

What Moves Live Hog

• China's sow herd inventory. Because it takes roughly ten months for a sow's pregnancy and piglet growth to reach market weight, current breeding herd numbers act as a highly reliable leading indicator for future hog supply.
• Feed costs. Corn and soybean meal make up the bulk of hog feed; when these input costs spike, farmers often rush hogs to slaughter to save money, temporarily flooding the market and depressing live hog prices.
• African swine fever outbreaks. Sudden outbreaks of ASF can trigger mass culling and panic selling, causing wild, unpredictable swings in immediate supply and extreme price volatility.
• Government pork reserve purchases/releases. Beijing actively manages domestic food security by buying pork to support farmers during price crashes or releasing reserves to cool down inflation during price spikes.
• Seasonal demand. Demand surges ahead of the Chinese New Year as households prepare traditional cured meats, creating a predictable seasonal bump in consumption during the winter months.

Why Traders Watch It

Live Hog is a pure China-domestic protein cycle play. Unlike most global commodities, it trades day only with no night session, meaning you won't wake up to gap risks from overnight news, but you also can't hedge positions while European or US markets are open.

The contract lists only odd months—Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Nov—forcing traders to manage roll dates carefully. At 16 metric tons per lot, a price of ¥16,000/ton gives a contract value of ¥256,000 (≈$35,800). With an exchange margin of roughly 8–10% (dynamic), you only need about ¥23,000 (≈$3,200) to control that lot.

The tick size is ¥5/ton, or ¥80 (≈$11) per lot, making it accessible for retail accounts while capturing the famous "hog cycle" (猪周期)—one of China's most legendary and tradable commodity boom-and-bust loops.

What to Watch Out For

• Policy shocks. Unexpected government reserve auctions or state-mandated slaughter guidelines can instantly reverse a technical trend, catching momentum traders off guard.
• Liquidity rotation. Because contracts only exist in odd months, volume tends to dry up in back months and aggressively rotate into the front month, which can cause slippage during execution.
• Disease-driven volatility traps. Unverified rumors of African swine fever on Chinese social media can trigger flash spikes or crashes that don't reflect actual supply chain disruptions, trapping breakout traders.
• Day-only gaps. With no night session, any major agricultural or macro news breaking after the DCE close will result in a hard gap open the next morning, bypassing your intraday stop-losses.

Trading LH on XS Select

All XS Select evaluations include LH and every other major Chinese commodity contract, on real Wenhua Finance market data with institutional liquidity. Commission is 2x the exchange standard (open and close) — replicating professional conditions.