Smithfield shares declined for a third day on Wednesday as a Wall Street analyst downgraded the stock and unsubstantiated finger pointing at company hog farms in Mexico persisted despite a lack of evidence linking it or any hog operations to the hybrid Type A H1N1 virus.

While shares of competitors including Tyson Foods and Hormel Foods closed in positive territory, Smithfield shares closed down 28 cents at $9.16 per share on the New York Stock Exchange.

Earlier on Wednesday, Barclays Capital analyst Christopher Bledsoe downgraded Smithfield shares to "under weight" from "even weight" based on concerns about further pork consumption and trade fallout from flu fears, Smithfield's lack of diversification outside pork and the company's pre-existing balance sheet vulnerabilities.

Mexican health official

Meanwhile, a senior Mexican health official on Wednesday afternoon said genetic information in the new virus strain was more similar to types of flu that affects pigs in Central and East Asia than in North America.

"This corresponds to a Eurasian strain," the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph quoted Miguel Angel Lezana, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control, as saying. "It is probable that this strain is not circulating among pigs on the American continent."

His comments came in the face of continued online chatter and news media reports of local residents speculating about the origin of the virus because the first reported hybrid H1N1 influenza case in the town of La Gloria, Mexico, is near Smithfield-owned pig farms.

The Telegraph quoted Lezana as saying there was absolutely no evidence to support the residents' claims. "It is extremely unlikely that the virus made the mutation in La Gloria," he said.

Both the Mexican government and Smithfield Foods have stated they have found no evidence of swine flu or the new hybrid H1N1 strain at Smithfield hog operations in Mexico.

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