Iron ore is drowning, not waving

Tuesday 8 September 2026

There are loads of articles around today claiming a new iron ore boom as the price moves above $100. These are completely wrong.

The only thing booming in iron ore is shipping rates, as diesel cracks go nuts.

This is absorbed into the daily CFR price, which the market generally uses, but it is a fake measure of miner profitability.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

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.