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Iron ore prices sink to 10-week lows, following data showing stockpiles at Chinese ports had reached more than 100M metric tons.
- Stronger steel demand in China and supply disruptions in Australia and Brazil were the initial drivers for this year’s surprise advance, but prices have dropped nearly 25% after reaching nearly $69/metric ton a month ago.
- Morgan Stanley analyst Tom Price points to seasonal restocking, Chinese economic policy and the direction of U.S. interest rates as the key drivers of prices, more so than speculative trading activity.
- Iron ore is a major source of profits for the likes of BHP Billiton (BHP +0.9%), Rio Tinto (RIO +0.6%) and Vale (VALE +1.6%), with every $1/ton move in the price impacting earnings by hundreds of millions of dollars.
- "Both BHP and Rio have downgraded guidance for 2017, and we expect that Vale is likely to disappoint in its delivery of S11D [a new iron ore project] as well as its ongoing struggles with the Southern System mines,” Macquarie analysts say.