Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures closed higher on Thursday, recovering from a weak open after the market held a key support level, traders said.
March rice settled 11 cents higher at $8.20 per hundredweight. The more actively traded May contract ended 8 cents up at $8.47, after falling 6 cents to $8.33.
"We couldn't get below $8.33 - $8.32 is a key support level," one rice trader said.
But the rally came amid light volume which was seen as a technically weak factor, he added.
An estimated 309 futures and 35 options traded. That compared to 879 futures that traded on Wednesday.
Early pressure stemmed from spillover long liquidation, likely commodity funds as they lighten their positions due to a weakening technical picture, traders said.
Featured sellers were ABN Amro and Man Financial.
Trade was light in the March contract as it is in delivery. There were 53 March deliveries on Thursday, which were met by strong commercial stopping. The house account of the ADM Investor Services stopped 30 contracts.
Weekly US export sales data was viewed supportive but the growing amount of unshipped sales was raising concerns about possible cancellations this spring.
The US Agriculture Department said on Thursday that 96,100 tonnes of US rice were sold for export last week. But shipments were at 55,900 tonnes, 39 percent off the previous week.
The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute on Thursday projected US rice plantings at 3.16 million acres, down from the 3.38 million planted in 2005.
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