Speculators -the epitome of illogical emotion and unfathomable greed- are usually behind such short term dramatic fluctuations-
e.g w the Libya war speculators jumped the price of oil to 120 but price came back down again -speculators over respond to any event -even more than illogical emotional traders-and such overemotion is short lived precisely because it is illogical -and dramatic short term fluctuations are caused by the speculators themselves-not by real world conditions
I never saw such ridiculous emotion as the market -supercharged by the twin evils of fear and greed- until my friend dragged me into the market
Posted by Houses and Holes in Commodities , Iron ore price at 12:30am on March 14, 2014 | 0 comments
From Deutsche via FTAlphaville: While some metals merchants could be subject to mark to market margin calls due to RMB depreciation, they might opt to do more transit trades to meet cash requirements rather than selling copper outright, although this may only last for a short period of time. We believe that the recent sell-off is a combination of speculators trying to anticipate the unwinding of financing deals and a lack of buying in China due to sluggish real demand… With the SHFE/LME arb moving deeper into negative territory (Figure 7) and higher costs associated with RMB, such trades could...
Posted by Houses and Holes in Commodities , Iron ore price at 12:09am on March 14, 2014 | 3 comments
Here are the iron ore charts for March 13, 2014: The impressive rebound continues but is it a restock? There is some evidence in favour. From Reuters: China's steel output has recovered, rising 5.9 percent to 2.08 million tonnes a day in the last eight days of February from the preceding 10-day period, according to the China Iron and Steel Association. This is also up from the 2.07 million tonnes daily average for 2013, showing that the output is still growing. Steel inventories remain near record highs, although they have declined recently, dropping 5.9 percent to 16.3...
Posted by Houses and Holes in Commodities , Iron ore price at 2:55pm on March 13, 2014 | 10 comments
From our favourite eponymous iron ore analyst today, UBS's Tom Price, pictured above on a recent tour of the Pilbara: "Our view is this fall in the price is temporary...You will actually start seeing the price tighten, inventories draw down, steel production lift, they always do every year. So over the next six months our expectation is for the prices of iron ore to recover and get back to a level of about $US130. We think that’s a reasonable one for the first half of this year...The surge in supply – we highlighted that as a risk to iron ore prices back in Q3 but it seems to have had a knock...