"Commercial buying pushed the market into buy stops. We hit a new high for the move," one rice trader said. November rice closed 17 cents higher at $7.29 per hundredweight and January settled 18 up at $7.57-1/2, climbing to $7.59.
Commercials were aggressively buying the January contract all the way up to $7.54, traders said. Buy stops were hit at $7.56 in January attracting speculative buying.
The November-January spread traded at 27-1/2, remaining historically wide amid ample US stocks and weak cash markets. Weakness in US basis markets was underscored by large deliveries for the second straight day.
There were 217 contracts posted against the November contract, with a customer of First Options issuing 112. But they were met by commercial stopping with the house account of ADM Investor Services taking 157 contracts.
CBOT rice registrations were at 1,184 contracts late on Monday, unchanged from Friday. Volume was large estimated at 1,132 futures and 60 options.
That compared to 1,405 contracts traded on Monday. The USDA said on Tuesday it left its weekly world market price for long grain rough rice unchanged at $5.85 per cwt.