NEW DELHI: Iron ore futures rose on Tuesday, as resilient demand and improved prospects in top consumer China continued to support the market.
The most-traded September iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended daytime trade 1.7% higher at 908 yuan ($125.47) a metric ton.
The benchmark June iron ore on the Singapore Exchange rose 1.9% to $120.4 a ton, as of 0751 GMT.
On Friday, China announced steps for its crisis-hit property sector, with the central bank facilitating 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) in extra funding and easing mortgage rules, among others.
“There’s still a lot of hot air built into iron ore prices and China’s wider industrial metals complex, which have been propped up by optimism and positive sentiment around the recent bouts of housing sector-related support packages,” said Atilla Widnell, managing director at Navigate Commodities.
However, Widnell added that “while the measures are supportive of house prices and will address the wider wealth and value destruction created by excess inventory, we do not believe it will be a silver bullet for construction activity and associated steel demand.”
Chinese steel mill margins also remain weak, placing pressure on prices of steel making raw materials, ANZ Research said in a note.
Other steelmaking ingredients on the DCE were mixed, with coking coal edging up 0.1% and coke slipping 0.1%.
Steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were mostly up. Rebar rose 0.4%, hot-rolled coil advanced 0.3% and stainless steel was up 0.4%, while wire rod slipped 0.1%.
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