CBOT rice on speculative sales

Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed lower on Thursday on commercial and speculative sales, traders said.
"The market was weak throughout the day, due both to farmer sales and weak technical signs," one broker said. "We're having problems finding any buyers above the $7 level in the November contract."
CBOT rice futures settled down 9 cents to 12-1/2 cents per hundredweight, with November down 12-1/2 cents at $6.82-1/2 and January down 12-1/2 cents at $7.00. Scale-down buying of January by Man Financial and RJ O'Brien limited losses, brokers said.
Weekly US export sales was considered neutral, they said. The US Department of Agriculture on Thursday reported weekly US rice export sales totalled 89,300 tonnes, down 12 percent from the previous week and down 16 percent from the 4-week average.
However, brokers noted recent sales have been outstanding compared with average sales.
Estimated rough rice futures volume was 1,082 contracts, compared with 900 lots traded on Wednesday.
Options trade totalled 15 lots.