Big iron holds up with futures

Thursday, 16 July 2015

BHP, RIO and FMG are all manfully holding up today despite the market-shattering news that RIO is going to have to ship 50 million tonnes more iron ore over the second half than it did the first to reach its volume targets. This is effectively an increase in annual output of 100mt.

The last time this happened was FMG’s big dump and the price crashed roughly 30%. I’m not sure why markets think that it will be different this time but if I were a betting man I would be redoubling my RIO shorts on the market’s wondrous generosity. To the indexes:

And the idiocy spreads are widening fast now:

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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.