Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures closed mixed and range-bound on Tuesday, with volume thin ahead of the upcoming holiday break, traders said.
January rice closed unchanged at $7.86 per hundredweight. March was down 2 cents at $8.11. CBOT agricultural markets will close on Friday at noon CST and remain closed until the overnight session on December 26. The rice market remains technically strong, trading above all key moving averages.
Fundamentally, there was little fresh input. Light speculative buying by commodity funds was supportive. But that was met by local selling and some commercial sales. ABN Amro was a featured buyer, likely a fund, traders said.
The January/March spread traded at 25 to 26-1/2 cents as firms continued to roll out of their January positions before the start of the January delivery period at month's end.
But spread trade was on the lighter side and expected to pick up next week before delivery, traders said. Volume was estimated at 807 futures and 66 options, compared with 653 futures traded on Monday.
The US Department of Agriculture said after the close that it left the weekly world market price for long grain rough rice unchanged at $5.91 per cwt.