Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade fell on Tuesday on prospects that the government will raise its US rice stocks estimate in its monthly crop report on Wednesday, traders said. "There was aggressive speculative selling in front of the report," one rice floor broker said. CBOT rough rice futures closed 13 to 15 cents per hundredweight lower. January was down 13 cents at $6.93 and March was 15-1/2 cents lower at $7.10.
The general consensus among floor traders and analysts is the US Department of Agriculture should raise its 2004/05 US end stocks estimate for rice, reflecting lacklustre consumption of this year's huge crop.
USDA's current US rice 2004/05 end stocks estimate stands at 41.8 million cwt, up from last year's end stocks of 23.7 million cwt. In the futures delivery market, there were only eight lots posted against the January contract by a Goldberg customer.
The house account of ADM Investor Services took the most or 6 lots. USDA left the world market price for long grain rough rice unchanged at $6.34 per cwt in its weekly report on Tuesday.
Global export business featured the Philippines buying 320,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam on Tuesday to fill an expected supply shortage of up to 1.6 million tonnes.
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