Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures settled firm on Wednesday as late commercial buying pared losses due to speculative selling, brokers said.
"Fiat Futures bought July late, and we also had earlier scale-down buying from RJ O'Brien and Man Financial," one CBOT rice broker said. "Fund selling, led by Citicorp, triggered sell-stops in the July."
CBOT rice ended up 2 cents to 4 cents per cwt, with old-crop July up 3 cents at $10.06 and September up 2 cents at $9.09. CBOT rough rice estimated volume on Wednesday was 86 contracts, compared with Tuesday's volume of 201 lots.
Options trade totalled 24 lots.