Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures closed mixed on Friday with the nearbys weak after a choppy, range-bound session, traders said. "There was some pretty good commercial buying but the market was range-bound waiting for something new to develop," said Neauman Coleman, analyst and rice broker from Brinkley, Arkansas.
September rice closed 1-1/2 cent lower at $9.18 per hundredweight. New-crop November ended one cent down at $9.47. The market climbed early on light speculative buying which intensified when buy-stops were hit near $9.50 in November. That was met by commercial sales. The market dipped again to $9.45-$9.43 and commercial buying surfaced. An estimated 734 futures and 68 options. That compared to 598 futures that traded on Thursday. Buying interest in US rice picked up the past three days ever since Wednesday's slide to a one-month low, traders said.
Farmer sales of old-crop rice also increased this week. "There are some farmers that have been selling toward the end of July because they have government loans maturing," Coleman said. In export news, US rice sales to South Korea have increased sharply since last week due to lower prices. Wholesale prices of US No 1 rice early this week were almost 3 percent lower than a month ago, while South Korean rice prices have risen 4 percent in a month.