Chinese steel output crashes

Tuesday, 7 November 2023

There are irrational markets, and then there is iron ore.

While iron ore has been spiking to prices silly enough to trigger a new supply response, Chinese steel output has been falling through the floor:

This is the classic Q3 destock that usually crashes prices. Not so this year, thanks to the Beijing policy panic.

We will get some more infrastructure going into 2024 thanks to Beijing:

Not that it will really help anything:

And the looming downdraft for construction remains immense:

Go figure.

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.