US rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose on Friday to end up 1.5 percent on a technical bounce after falling to a 10-month low this week, traders said. January rice held support at $13.90, triggering more chart-based buying, ending up 21-1/2 cents at $14.27-1/2 per hundredweight.
November expired in a flurry - reaching a high of $14.75, up 53-1/2, as short positions were covered before noon expiration -traders November traded as a spread roughly 79 times and not in outright trade- traders Rice ends higher despite the weakness in the Dow industrials. The grains divorced themselves from equities and crude, closing firm while they ended weak.
Volume was light to moderate, estimated at 902 futures and 37 options. There were 54 November deliveries, with an RJ O'Brien customer stopping all. USDA reported US rice weekly export sales at 53,400 tonnes, up 14 percent from the week before.
In its first rice purchase in two months, Japan bought 72,463 tonnes of rice in two tenders. Of the total, 33,763 tonnes will be sourced from the United States - ministry official. The Thai government sold 1.8 million tonnes of rice from its stockpile to exporters, short of the 3.1 million it aimed to sell through a November 5 tender -commerce minister.