SINGAPORE: Iron ore futures ticked up on Tuesday for a second straight session, buoyed by stronger global steel production, although US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to implement new tariffs when he takes office limited gains.
The most-traded January iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) traded 0.77% higher at 786.5 yuan ($108.41) a metric ton, as of 0240 GMT.
The benchmark December iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was 0.19% higher at $102.8 a ton. The World Steel Association revised its production data upwards on Monday to show global crude steel output in October rose 1% from a year earlier, compared with a 0.4% gain reported last Friday.
In China, the world’s top producer and consumer of the metal, crude steel production climbed 2.9% last month, latest data showed. Meanwhile, Trump pledged an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods until Beijing stops the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, is now in a much more vulnerable position given the country’s prolonged property downturn, debt risks and weak domestic demand.
Neither the United States nor China would win a trade war sparked by Trump’s tariffs, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said on Monday. Iron ore markets remain very focused on upcoming Chinese meetings, including the Politburo meeting scheduled for early December and the Central Economic Work Conference scheduled for mid-December, Westpac analysts said in a note.
“China still faces very severe structural headwinds to growth, but at the very least, fiscal and monetary policy settings are now more obviously injecting meaningful support,” Westpac said in a separate note.
Other steelmaking ingredients on the DCE were mixed, with coking coal down 0.7% and coke up 0.44%. Most steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange edged higher. Rebar gained about 0.4%, hot-rolled coil rose almost 0.3%, wire rod strengthened about 1.2%, while stainless steel lost nearly 0.7%.
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