Find below the iron ore price table for July 26, 2013:
And the charts for spot and 12 month swap:
As well as rebar average:
Rebar future fell. Our spreads are now all stretched with spot to swap a good 10% overcooked at the level:
And post rebar is still way out of whack:
Still no reason for much change that I can see. Reuters agrees:
“The temporary stall in prices does not mean the fundamentals have changed essentially. Steel mills’ order books are still strong, while the low availability of iron ore cargoes suggests that the raw material can stay at not far from $130 in near future,” said an iron ore trader in Shanghai.
Iron ore availability in the spot market has been reduced because miners have supplied more quantities to steel mills with which they have long-term contracts, traders said.
Improving orders and falling inventories have pushed up steel prices by more than 4 percent in July, encouraging mills to build up iron ore inventories worth about one month’s use, they said. But the restocking pace is slowing somewhat now.
“The sentiment seems less strong than last week and iron ore prices are likely to ease next week, but steel demand remains firm and mills’ margins are rising, so I expect the downside for iron ore is limited,” said a second iron ore trader in Shanghai.
Chinese port stocks jumped to their highest levels since April as well. I could see prices drifting lower by $10 or so over the next few weeks. We’ve reached some kind of equilibrium point with restock dynamics subsiding and inventories at reasonable levels so future transactions can pass straight through to output until demand shifts either on a slowing economy or seasonal weakness.
