Futures price - cash price = Basis

Moves all the time.

In hogs you would take your lead month futures price and for our area you'd either use the IA/Southern MN price or the Western Cornbelt price.

Feb hogs closed at $85.57 today.   The Western cornbelt weighted avg was $81.86 today, Feb 4, 2014.

Basis =    - $3.71

That's actually getting together pretty good since were getting closer to the end of the Feb contract.

Its the time frame that is no man's land after the Dec contract expires where its hard to hedge hogs.