Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed weak and at the day's lows on Thursday as profit-taking and commercial hedge sales weighed on the market, traders said. November rice ended 11 cents lower at $9.83 per hundredweight, after climbing 3 cents on follow-through technical buying.
January ended 13 cents down at $10.10-1/2. An estimated 1,142 futures and 80 options traded, down from the 3,972 futures that traded on Wednesday.
The market was poised for a correction after soaring the 50-cent price limit on speculative buying after on Tuesday's strong technical close, traders said. There was also commercial selling of March and new-crop September by Rosenthal Collins that added to the bearish tone, traders said.
"It looks like there's some forward sales by producers taking advantage of the higher prices this week," said one rice broker. There was little reaction to the weekly export data with sales continuing to lag year ago by 55 percent. US exporters sold 77,100 tonnes of rice last week, 49 percent above the previous week, the US Agriculture Department reported on Thursday.
Most of it went to Canada and Mexico combined they took 70,900 tonnes. There were heavy November deliveries of 321, but they were met by strong commercial stopping with the ADM house account stopping 285 lots.