Iron ore price

Big iron is on the nose again today.

Here are the iron ore charts for June 5, 2015: Little change, then.

Big iron is all over the shop today with BHP flat, RIO down a bit and FMG on the march as all celebrate more crap China data.

Or, put more diplomatically, “self-defeating”, from Goldies: The iron ore industry continues to expand by building new mines and by operating existing mines more efficiently, but the increase in supply is not linear.

Laugh out loud.

Here are the iron ore charts for June 8, 2015 (incorporating 2 days): Qingdao spot weakened marginally and Tianjin was flat.

From the Globe and Mail comes a useful forecast for Chinese steel: Yang Zengkui climbs a hill behind his small restaurant on the industrial outskirts of Shijiazhuang.

From Morgan Stanley: Although unlikely to boost demand this year, wethink OBOR could potentially provide new sources of commodity demand in the coming years.

From Morgan Stanley on the CISA steel output data I noted this morning, lends more weight to the base case that the output spike is temporary: Our comments: The pickup in daily production is in line with the Tangshan blast furnace operating rate, which was up 1% from early May.

From The Australian: It is understood that approaches have been made by Mr Forrest to banks such as Macquarie, UBS and possibly Goldman Sachs concerning Chichester.

Here are the iron ore charts for June 4, 2015: Take that in the eye, bears!

Here are the iron ore price charts for June 3, 2015: Qingdao iron ore managed a new high yesterday despite paper market pullbacks but momentum is easing.

From Dad’s Army comes Peter Costello: The former federal treasurer says he is not convinced there’s a case for an inquiry, calls for which follow accusations major miners are deliberately pushing down prices to force out smaller rivals.

Big iron is playing catch-up today with BHP up 1%, RIO up 2.5% and FMG up 2%.

Here are the iron ore charts for June 2, 2015: Spot up firmly though less than Dalian suggested it should be.

BHP is down 2% and RIO 1.5% today for no apparent reason beyond weak leads in London.

From Citi: There is considerable international media reporting of the upcoming (5 June) vote by the Norwegian parliament on whether the approximately US$900bn sovereign wealth fund should exclude companies with more than 30% of their revenue from coal mining, and electricity generators with more than 30% of their generation from coal.

From the AFR: After failing to convince the Abbott government to run an inquiry into the iron ore market, Fortescue Metals Group is understood to be quietly agitating for Plan B  – an inquiry in the West Australian Parliament.

Here are the iron ore price charts for May 1, 2015: Spot has not updated owing to the Singapore market being closed.

The China data keeps rolling with the non-manufacturing PMI out and still growing at 53.2 but slower over the month by 0.2.

From Ian Verrender at the ABC: After months of seemingly erratic behaviour, Rinehart’s neighbour, Andrew Forrest, finally has begun to unveil snippets of his end game strategy.