This Week
USDA changed World Market Price factors for the third week in a row – but this week by increasing both long grain and medium/short grain by 20 cents. The on-farm value of long grain rough increases this week to $11.63 per cwt.
This week’s rice futures action ended on something of a positive note, but both a quarterly stocks report and the prospective plantings report due out at 11:00 AM CDT on Monday may affect that. Sellers pushed on the pricing early and mid week, but yesterday and today saw some good, supportive buying, which left the nearby May contract at 15.51, up 24.5 cents from the intermediate low of 15.265 made on Wednesday.
Volume has not been much to write home about this week, but buyers were definitely there when prices sagged too low. We have to keep in mind that there is still a lot of ground to cover between now and the time new crop long grain is cut and dried. All we can do now is wait and see what the reports say and how the market reacts.
We continue to be positive – the fundamentals are strong, and we think shorting this market could result in some potentially difficult to satisfy delivery notices. If trading rice futures or any other futures, use good judgment and good money management.
Exports
After last week’s large numbers, the export sales took a big breather this week – coming in at a net figure of only 9,700 tons, which included 2,000 tons sold out of the 2014/15 crop. (We have seen this type of see-saw activity a couple of times already in this marketing year, so we will just have to wait and see how the next few reports shake out.)
Long grain paddy was bought by Mexico to the tune of 3,000 tons, while milled and brown sales were due to purchases primarily made by El Salvador, Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Medium/short milled and brown sales totaled 2,800 tons, where Canada, Australia, and Singapore put most of the points on the board. Given the weather conditions in Australia, this may be the first of many purchases of US rice from down under – will they take southern medium grain is the question.
Export liftings made a considerably stronger showing, with a total of 93,800 tons being physically exported during the week. Over half of loadings were 49,000 tons of long grain rough to Mexico (46,800 tons) and Honduras (2,200 tons). Long grain milled and brown totaled 14,900 tons, where Haiti took 7,300 tons, Panama loaded out 2,400 tons, Yemen shipped 1,200 tons (parboiled), Canada took 1,100 tons of milled and 100 tons of brown, and Costa Rica moved 700 tons.
Shipments of medium/short grain totaled 30,100 tons and included 200 tons of rough taken by Mexico, along with 12,600 tons of milled exported to Turkey, 12,500 tons to Japan, 1,200 tons to Canada, 1,000 tons to Taiwan, and 500 tons to Jordan.
Asia
Some Asian prices slipped quite a bit this week, probably in anticipation of the big Philippine tender. Thai 100% Grade B finished the week at $390 per ton fob vessel for old crop and $395 per ton for new crop, while Thai parboiled was called $410 per ton. Vietnamese 5% milled was quoted at $385 per ton. Pakistani 5% long grain was actually better at $410 per ton, with no quote for parboiled at week’s end. Indian 5% long grain was higher at the end of this week, too, at $430 per ton, with parboiled at $415 per ton.
