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CBOT rice ends mostly firmer amid stronger exports

CHICAGO: Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade ended mostly higher following quiet activity Thursday, with stronger export readings providing support, traders said.

CBOT rice settled 3 cents per hundredweight (cwt) lower to 3 higher, with March contracts up 2 at $5.43.

Traders said the market keyed early off Thursday's weekly export sales report from the US Department of Agriculture, but overall activity remained uninspired and confined to ranges. Commodity funds remained largely sidelined, traders said.

"We're not seeing much fund activity now," one CBOT broker said. "We're kind of in a trading range."

In the report, the USDA listed net US rice sales during the week ended Jan. 6 at 84,600 tonnes, 41 percent above the previous week but 2 percent under the four-week average.

Term Commodities was a light buyer in July contracts late, traders said, while E.D. & F. Man International sold March and May early and Rosenthal Collins sold about 50 contracts apiece in May and July.

A lower US supply outlook conveyed in USDA reports Wednesday remained an underpinning factor, traders said, but supplies were still abundant.

In its latest monthly supply and demand reports Wednesday, the USDA said it lowered its projection for 1999/2000 ending US rice stocks to 44.6 million cwt from a previous estimate of 49.4 million. Still, the new number was double the ending stocks of 22.1 million cwt for 1998/99.

Rice futures volume in Thursday's pit session was estimated by the CBOT at 300 contracts, compared with 239 Wednesday.-Reuters