Iron ore at the threshold of a new era

Monday 15 September 2025

I have remarked many times how strange liquidity-fed markets have become. Iron ore is no exception.

The anti-involution rally appears to have topped out with the opposite outcome of that intended. Steel prices have fallen while input prices have risen, killing profitability.

That will only produce more deflation over the stretch as squashed margins meet raised output.

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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.