Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures closed lower Monday on spill-over weakness from corn and soybeans amid light volume, traders said. "They'll start harvesting soon in the very deep south - Louisiana and Texas. That added to the pressure," one rice trader said.
September closed 9 cents weaker at $10.35 per hundredweight, rebounding from its low of $10.18 as speculative buying by local traders brought the market off its lows late. New-crop November rice ended 12 cents lower at $10.66, recovering from a bottom of $10.52.
Both soybeans and corn were pressured by mild crop weather forecast for the coming week. November soy ended 34 cents down at $8.16-1/4 per bushel and December corn closed 8-1/4 weaker at $3.10. An estimated 256 futures traded, close to the 251 futures that traded on Friday. Local traders were the featured players, which kept volume light. Quiet cash markets and export business limited customer orders, traders said.
Trade data issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed that large speculators cut their net long rice futures/options position by 1,300 contracts to 1,100 during the week ended July 17.
USDA reported late Monday that US rice conditions fell three points in the past week, rating 73 percent of the crop good to excellent. But conditions remain significantly above a year ago when only 55 percent of the crop was in good-to-excellent condition.