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CBOT rice ends up on attempts at bargain buying

CHICAGO: Rough rice futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed higher on Thursday on short covering and because traders attempted to find and buy the bottom of the market.

Rice closed 6-1/2 to 7 cents per cwt higher, with March up "I think it was just oversold. We broke pretty hard lately and the buying today looked like spec buying," a trader said.

Rosenthal Collins fuelled a rally early in the session with purchases of the July contract. That action triggered local short covering, the traders said.

Fundamentals were little changed with the large rice stocks worldwide continuing to drag on the market, they said.

The Philippines on Thursday rejected tenders for the supply of 131,000 tonnes of white rice from either China, Vietnam and Thailand due to high prices.

"We did not buy," Gregorio Tan, deputy administrator of state trading firm National Food Authority, told Reuters.

Tan said the NFA planned to call for a rebid in two weeks to get better prices.

US traders also cited the large rice stocks domestically and waning demand for US grown supplies.

Rice futures volume was estimated by the CBOT at 1,000 lots, above the 861 lots traded on Wednesday.

Rice options volume was estimated at 150 lots.-Reuters