Posted on 06 Jul 2021
The most-traded September iron ore contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) fluctuated throughout the daytime trading of July 2 by having dipped to Yuan 1,143/dmt ($176.6/dmt) in the late morning but having rebounded to Yuan 1,182.5/dmt at the close, or up $9/dmt or 0.8% from the settlement price on Thursday, indicating that the investors were still looking for signs of direction, market sources shared.
“To be honest, fluctuation has become the main theme recently for the DCE iron ore, and it has been common to see it be narrowly rangebound, up one day and down another,” a Shanghai-based iron ore analyst commented, and “this indicates that the market is rather unclear about the direction with too many co-existing uncertainties,” he added.
Source: DCE
The iron ore market is with mixed signals, another analyst with a Shanghai-based iron ore futures company agreed, as “it seems very likely for supply to gradually increase for the rest of 2021, while iron ore stocks at ports especially for medium- and higher-grade iron ore products remain tight,” he elaborated.
“As for demand, Beijing remains committed to capping this year’s crude steel output, which will definitely dampen iron ore demand, but so far we have not seen any concrete moves from either the central government or individual steel mills, and steel margin as a key indicator of steel production is hard to predict,” he added.
However, Beijing’s close watch on commodity prices including steel has made it very hard for iron ore prices to surge frantically anyway, he added.
On Friday, the most-traded October rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) fluctuated throughout the day too and closed the daytime trading session at Yuan 5,124/t, or down Yuan 32/t or 0.6% from the settlement price on Thursday.
Source:Mysteel Global
