By Kirk Maltais

--Corn for December delivery fell 0.4% to $5.70 3/4 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Friday, in reaction to crude-oil prices sliding 3.7%.

--Soybeans for January delivery fell 0.2% to $12.63 1/4 a bushel.

--Wheat for December delivery rose 0.4% to $8.23 a bushel.

HIGHLIGHTS

Crude Reality: Corn's link to ethanol put pressure on futures while Nymex crude lost ground on worries that Covid-19 lockdowns in Austria and other nations would translate to lower gasoline demand. The most-active corn contract fell as low as $5.68 a bushel before spurring new buying from fund traders. "The tone of the CBOT remains bullish," AgResource said. "Investment funds have a sizeable amount of capital to place in the commodity space before the end of the year." Volume was light on the CBOT ahead of next week's Thanksgiving holiday.

World Cuts: Expectations of lower global wheat production provided support for futures. The International Grains Council on Thursday revised its harvest forecast to 2.29 billion metric tons of grain in the 2021/22 season, down 3 million tons from last month's prediction. Additionally, higher Russian taxes on wheat exports also elevated the market, although some traders believe that this may soon turn. "There has been some fundamental reason for the wheat rally as the end user has been active but we are getting to some pretty exceptional levels," said Richard Buttenshaw of Marex Spectron.

INSIGHTS

Closing the Gate: News that Austria is going back into a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown next week pressured markets in general, including agricultural commodities. Concerns are that other European countries may reimpose lockdowns. The effects on U.S. commodity prices may be limited, said Craig Turner of Daniels Trading. "Next week is Thanksgiving week, so U.S. volume and trader participation will be lower while European shutdown news will intensify," Mr. Turner said. "The silver lining is everyone now knows what limited and full shutdowns look like. The market has seen how demand comes down and then bounces back."

Feed Factor: While Russian export taxes are seen as a main factor pressuring available wheat on the export market, Chinese consumption of wheat for animal feed is also a factor, said Charlie Sernatinger of ED&F Man Capital. "The wheat rally comes from the Chinese having sold some 40 million tons of wheat out of their reserve last season to feed to animals, thus solving a corn problem, but creating a budding wheat problem for themselves," Mr. Sernatinger said. "You don't lose 40 million tons of state stocks and walk away without it having an effect on world trade."

AHEAD

--The USDA will release its weekly export inspections report at 11 a.m. ET Monday.

--The USDA will release its monthly Cold Storage report at 3 p.m. ET Monday.

--The USDA will release its weekly crop progress report at 4 p.m. ET Monday.

Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-19-21 1556ET