* Midwest harvest progress weighs on soybeans, corn futures
* Grain markets still hopeful for U.S.-China trade settlement
* Wheat holds above Monday low, helped by Egypt tender (Recasts with U.S. market open, adds analyst comment, updates prices, changes dateline, previous PARIS/SINGAPORE)
CHICAGO, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Chicago corn and soybean futures were mixed on Tuesday as an advancing U.S. harvest curbed price gains while traders awaited further developments in U.S.-Chinese trade negotiations.
Wheat edged higher, steadying after a near two-week low on Monday, with support from an Egyptian import tender that put the focus back on global demand and rising export prices.
The Chicago Board of Trade most-active soybean contract was down 0.38% at $9.17-1/4 a bushel as of 10:52 a.m. CDT (1552 GMT), while CBOT corn crept up 0.26% to $3.85 a bushel.
CBOT wheat gained 0.39% to $5.13-3/4 a bushel, holding above Monday’s low of $5.10.
U.S. farmers have harvested 62% of their soybean crop, up from 46% a week earlier although below the average pace of 78% at this time of the year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said after the market closed on Monday.
The U.S. corn harvest was 41% complete, up from 30% a week earlier and lower than the average pace of 61%, the agency said. The corn harvest progress was below the average trade estimate of 43%.
Forecasts of snow across a wide swath of the U.S. Midwest – from Missouri to Wisconsin, according to the Commodity Weather Group – are poised to further slow the harvest and have raised questions about weather impacts on the U.S. corn crop.
The sluggish harvest helped firm basis bids for corn shipped by barge to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, as photos of snow-covered Iowa fields began cropping up on Twitter this week.
“Everyone is wondering what the snow is doing to the corn harvest, particularly the corn that was planted later in the season,” said Ted Seifried, chief ag market strategist of the Zaner Group.
U.S. harvest yields are still seen as difficult to predict after a year marked by rain-plagued spring planting.
Meanwhile, soybean traders say the lack of news on the ongoing U.S.-China trade war has done little to rally prices. Progress this month in negotiations had raised hopes of a return to previous volumes of U.S. soybean shipments, although the market was awaiting firmer details.
On Tuesday, Jared Kushner – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – told a panel at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “have made a fabulous deal” with Beijing.
“Everyone is more focused on weather right now and the fact that we’re in a vacuum of trade news,” said Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodity Analytics.
The wheat market was focused on a tender by top importer Egypt.
U.S. wheat remained uncompetitive and was not offered in the ongoing tender. But the U.S. market drew some support from initial bids that confirmed rising Russian prices and boosted Paris futures by showing French wheat as the cheapest origin before shipping costs. (Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore Editing by Dale Hudson and Matthew Lewis)
