BEIJING- Iron ore futures prices slid on Monday as some investors and traders liquidated certain long positions to cash in profits on bets of faltering demand entering seasonally slack steel demand season in top consumer China, while shipments increased.
The most-traded September iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended morning trade 0.88 percent lower at 901 yuan ($124.36) a metric ton.
The benchmark June iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was 0.95 percent lower at $119.65 a ton.
A seasonally slowing demand for steel products will also drag down consumption for iron ore, analysts at Sinosteel Futures said in a note.
“Meanwhile, the global weekly iron ore shipments have been above 30 million tons for five straight weeks, and shipments from some mainstream suppliers are gradually swinging back into the uptrend. High supply and relatively weak demand jointly contributed to the persistent pick-up in portside inventories even at a time when stocks typically fall,” they added.
Weighing on sentiment is also a loss of 22.22 billion yuan in the first four months in the steel industry, although China’s industrial profits swung back into positive territory in April, data from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Other steelmaking ingredients on the DCE also lost ground, with coking coal and coke down 1.19 percent and 0.11 percent , respectively.
