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CBOT rice ends mostly lower amid soft cash

CHICAGO: Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade ended mostly lower Monday, burdened by weak technicals and a soft tone in world cash prices.

CBOT rice settled unchanged to 5 cents per hundredweight (cwt) lower, with March contracts down 2-1/2 at $5.45-1/2.

Rice futures rose early in the session amid speculative buying but faded amid commercial selling and a lack of follow through buying interest, traders said.

Term Commodities and E.D. & F. Man International were sellers of March contracts around $5.48 to $5.50, traders said. Term turned a buyer near the day's lows, traders added.

The latest government releases reflected a soft cash market tone, traders said. In its weekly world report released Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture listed long grain whole kernel rice at 7.42 cents per lb, compared to 7.6 cents the previous week.

Speculative commodity funds have accumulated a sizable net short position in the rice market, traders said, as evidenced by the latest Commitments of Traders reports from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The CFTC said that as of Jan. 11, noncommercial interests, which are primarily funds, held 1,032 short futures contracts in rice and 363 longs, for a net short of 669.

Rice futures volume in Tuesday's pit session was estimated by the CBOT at 500 contracts, compared with 304 Friday. -Reuters