US rough rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade closed mixed on Monday, with the nearbys pressured by profit-taking after notching an all-time high late last week, traders said. "We got into a little profit-taking when we got up to $15.20" per hundredweight in March, said Jack Scoville, analyst with The Price Futures Group in Chicago.
CBOT March rice ended 7 cents lower at $15.10 per cwt, after rising to a high of $15.10. The back months settled 10 cents lower to 4 cents higher. The lower close in rice was in contrast to the other CBOT markets, which rallied amid a fresh inflow of speculative capital from commodity funds. This is also the start of the selling season for Vietnam, the No 2 rice exporter following Thailand, traders said.
Trade data issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday showed that large speculators increased their net long futures/options position in CBOT rough rice by roughly 900 contracts to 7,000 lots during the week ended January 29.
In export news, Japan bought a total of 69,000 tonnes of rice from the United States and Thailand for April-May shipment at a regular tender held last Friday. Of the total, 39,000 tonnes was US rice.