BEIJING, June 28 (Reuters) - China's iron ore rallied more than 3 percent on Wednesday, hitting its highest in a month and extending recent gains as investors piled into the market ahead of the quarter end and on a revival in appetite for bulk commodities.
Steel rebar rose as much as 3.2 percent and was on track for its best daily performance in more than a month.
Anlysts said the buying spree followed on from reassurances in a speech by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the state of the Chinese economy and industrial profit data on Tuesday. factors and some end-of-quarter window dressing had triggered a late afternoon surge in prices on Tuesday.
Iron ore hit technical resistance at 460.5 yuan ($67.72), its 50-day moving average, suggesting the remarkable 8-percent rally this week may not have much more momentum as worries about ballooning stockpiles and slackening demand linger.
Last week, stocks of imported iron ore at China's ports SH-TOT-IRONINV rose to 141.5 million tonnes, the highest since 2004, according to data tracked by SteelHome.
The most-traded iron ore contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange DCIOcv1 was up 3.16 percent at 457.5 yuan a tonne at 0330 GMT.
Prices are on track for their first quarterly loss since the fourth quarter 2015.
Traders said a breakout this week was inevitable ahead of the quarter and first-half end even without an obvious trigger. Until this week, prices had been stuck between about 415 yuan and 443 yuan this month.
Open interest in the market hit a record on Tuesday, rising 15 percent to 2.68 million lots, equivalent of 268.6 million tonnes worth 122.6 billion yuan.
Iron ore for delivery to China's Qingdao port .IO62-CNO=MB jumped 5.2 percent to $59.70 a tonne on Tuesday, its strongest since May 25, according to Metal Bulletin.
It was the biggest single-day spike for the spot benchmark since Feb. 13.
"We're not expecting to see a full-blown rally from here, but something in the low $60s looks reasonable over the next few months," said Daniel Hynes, commodity strategist at ANZ.
The most-active construction steel SRBcv1 rose 2.96 percent to 3,267 yuan a tonne as investors continued to focus on China's capacity cutbacks and industrial upgrade in the steel sector.
Coking coal DJMcv1 jumped 1.55 percent to 1,045.5 yuan a tonne, and coke DCJcv1 rose 1.73 percent at 1,676.5 yuan per tonne. ($1 = 6.8003 Chinese yuan renminbi)