November rice closed 17 cents lower at $7.32 and January was 18 weaker at $7.53 per hundredweight. January slid below its 10- and 20-day moving averages of $7.57 and $7.57-1/2.
"I think a lot of the longs that bought the market the last couple weeks are a little scared and bailing out it's mostly spec selling," said Jack Scoville, analyst with the Price Futures Group in Chicago.
There are outlooks that the government will raise its US rice end stocks estimate on Thursday's report from the 30.8 million hundredweight forecast in October.
There was talk that any damage from this season's hurricanes may not have been as bad as expected, analysts said. "Spec sell stops were widely scattered among a variety of commission houses.
Every couple pennies we had sell-stops from $7.60 down to $7.50" in January, said one CBOT floor broker. January hit a low of $7.50 when commercial buying surfaced, bring the market off its low.
Prudential Securities was the featured seller, likely fund-related, traders said. Man Financial and R.J. O'Brien were noted commercial buyers.
Volume was moderate estimated at 691 futures and 83 options. That compared to 488 contracts traded on Tuesday.