Chicago Board of Trade rough rice closed higher on Thursday, inching up throughout the session on technical buying amid the strength in the other CBOT markets, traders said. Buy-stops were hit from $10.33 to $10.38 per hundredweight in July.
"We've been rangebound for a while this was the first time in over a week that we've seen stops," said one rice trader. May rice closed 12 cents up at $10.08 per cwt and the more actively traded July contract ended 10 cents higher at $10.38 the day's high.
There were some supportive moves stemming from the options, with a firm buying November $11 call options and selling November $12 calls to finance the purchase, traders said. Volume was on the lighter side, estimated at 740 futures and 158 options, with 60 percent made in the spreads, traders said. That compared to 717 futures and 10 options traded on Wednesday.
Weekly export sales were disappointing at 11,500 tonnes (11,400 tonnes was old-crop). The tally was 74 percent below the previous week. In other export dealings, there was talk that Iraq has either postponed or cancelled its tender for rice that closed on May 2, traders said. In the delivery market, there were 135 deliveries, with a UBS Securities customer stopping 113.