Iron ore turns into fruitcake

Wednesday 3 September 2025

Steel prices are in an outright rout. This is the opposite of what the Beijing parade should produce.

Yet everybody wants town iron ore with Simndou two months hence? This is fruitcake time.

Chinese steel margins are collapsing as inventories pile up. There is only one outcome here. Production must fall, and all ferrous inventories must destock, which is typical for September/October.

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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.