Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade ended lower on Monday in sympathy with the other CBOT agricultural markets and New York cotton futures, traders said.
Rough rice futures settled 4 to 7 cents per hundredweight lower, with May down 4 at $9.83.
Sell-stops were hit shortly after the open, casting a bearish tone to the session.
"(But) commercial option interest helped support the market," one rice floor broker said.
Commercials bought calls and sold puts, which created a "synthetic" long futures position, one rice trader said. CBOT markets were led by the sharp decline in soyabean futures, which ended 21 to 30-1/2 cents lower on a profit-taking setback.
Cotton futures at the New York Cotton Exchanged closed at an eight-month low on speculative profit taking, sparked by weekend rains across the southern US Cotton Belt. May cotton settle at 58.76 cents per lb., down 2.95 cents its lowest close since September?
Rice trade was extremely thin, estimated at 106 futures and 22 options.
Fundamental inputs failed to stir any interest, traders said.
US rice plantings zoomed ahead. USDA reported after the close that farmers had seeded 32 percent of their rice crop as of Sunday, up from 15 percent last week and ahead of the five-year pace of 18 percent.