I’m having some data problems this morning, so I cannot provide all of the data pertaining to the iron ore complex (I’ll update this post as it comes to hand). What I can show is that iron ore with 62% content delivered to Qingdao, China, fell a further 1.6% overnight to $US66.84 a tonne – the lowest level since 2 June 2009 (see next chart).
The iron ore price has now crashed 50.2% since the beginning of the year, from $134.20 on 1 January 2014.
Understandably, this price crash is wreaking havoc on Australia’s junior miners, which operate high on the cost curve. The latest example comes from Atlas Iron, which released a statement yesterday revealing that it would take around $900 million in writedowns. The company has been one of the worst performing resources stocks this year, with its share price slumping 88% in the past 12 months.
