Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed steady on Tuesday, with rolling of November positions before first notice day on Friday featured, traders said.
CBOT rice futures settled 1/2 cent per hundredweight lower to 2 cents higher.
November closed unchanged at $6.89 per cwt and January was down 1/2 cent at $7.02. "Speculators were aggressively rolling their shorts in November," said one rice trader.
That accounted for the bulk of the day's volume, estimated by the CBOT at 1,341 futures. But very little of it has moved as farmers hope for higher prices and defer sales until the new tax year.
The US Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday it raised the weekly world market price for long grain rough rice to $6.01 per hundredweight, from $5.94 last week.