Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended lower on Friday as traders adjusted positions ahead of the weekend and funds continued to liquidate positions, market analysts said.
A hot turn in Midwest weather starting this weekend did bring some support for Chicago grains, which had previously shown little reaction to a heatwave in Western Europe threatening corn crops there.
CBOT's July corn contract (CN26) ended the day down 2 cents at $4.12-3/4 a bushel. The most-active December new-crop corn contract (CZ26) ended 1-1/2 cents lower at $4.41-1/2 a bushel.
Crude oil prices fell by more than 3% on Friday, on course for steep weekly losses as supply concerns eased with more oil tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz.
The decline in energy prices weighed on corn, which is used as a feedstock for biofuels.
Traders also spent some of the day getting positions ready for the U.S. Department of Agriculture acreage and stocks reports on June 30.
USDA is expected to report June 1 corn stocks were up 16.5% from a year earlier and that farmers planted about 95 million acres of corn this spring, a Reuters poll of analysts showed.
The National Weather Service is forecasting that temperatures could reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend as far north as the upper Midwest and as far east as the Carolinas.
Hotter-than-normal weather is expected from the Plains to the Atlantic Coast from now through July 4, the NWS reported.