Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures ended steady to weak in the nearby months on Friday, setting back from this week's run to 10-year top, traders said. November rice closed 2 cents lower at $11.73 per hundredweight. January and March ended unchanged at $12.09 and $12.30, respectively.
The back months ended firm amid month- and quarter-end positioning. Spreading was active, traders said, accounting for 60 percent of the volume. An estimated 2,477 futures and 89 options traded, compared to 3,132 futures and 115 options. MF Global was a features spreader of September-November, traders said. The weak dollar remains supportive to agricultural commodities in general, making them more competitively priced to importers of food and feed.
The dollar hit a record low against the Europe for the sixth trading session on Thursday. Export business was benefiting from the weakness in the dollar along with global demand for rice, traders said. South Korea issued tenders to buy a total of 115,752 tonnes of rice, optional-origin. Additionally, Indonesia said it might need an additional rice import of up to 700,000 tonnes this year to secure national stocks.