Rough rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade closed higher on Wednesday as a rally in wheat futures triggered light speculative buying, traders said. CBOT July rice settled up 14 cents at $10.76 per hundredweight, staying inside of Tuesday's trading range.
September ended up 10 cents at $11.12 and November was up 11 at $11.39. Volume was thin, estimated by the CBOT at 523 futures and three options. Rough rice futures were on the defensive in the session on follow-through weakness from Tuesday but soon firmed.
"We came back on speculative buying in the face of the wheat rally," one trader said. Buyers included Rosenthal Collins, RJ O'Brien and UBS Warburg. Traders noted commercial buying from Man Financial. The firm also sold November near the day's highs.
The United States Department of Agriculture left its world market price for long grain rough rice at 7.57 dollars per hundredweight, unchanged from last week. In world rice news, Bangladesh issued a tender to import 150,000 tonnes of non-basmati parboiled rice by October to meet possible emergency post-monsoon demand, food officials said.
Vietnam's rice export ground to a virtual halt this week due to a shortage of vessels, and traders expect freight rates to rise further amid high fuel prices and growing shipping demand.
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