Look for a quieter day of trading Wednesday (10 July) as traders await the latest USDA supply and demand report on Thursday. Traders surveyed by Reuters expect USDA to lower its US corn crop production estimate to 13.664 billion bushels from its June forecast of 13.680 billion bushels. The agency is expected cut the size of this year's US soybean crop to 3.833 billion bushels from 4.150 billion bushels estimated in June, due to the smaller US acreage estimate USDA released in late June. There is some keener uncertainty regarding USDA's numbers for corn and soybeans in this report, given the historically late-planting of the crops and questions about the corn-soybean acreage mix. For US all wheat carryover, the trade expects just over 1 billion bushels of stocks for both the current marketing year and the new marketing year.

Warmer, drier weather in the Midwest over the past week has helped the development of late-planted US crops. That's deemed bearish for the grains markets. However, there are some weather forecasters calling for the building of a high-pressure ridge over the Midwest starting next week.

That's far from a certainty, however, as a tropical storm is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico that is likely to impact weather in the central US next week.

Top trade negotiators from Washington and Beijing are speaking this week to revive stalled trade talks, as disagreements over prior commitments and political considerations threaten to bog down discussions. China has made no official mention of a commitment to purchasing more US ag products, and a person with knowledge of the event said Chinese Leader Xi Jinping made no such promise, according to Reuters.