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Singapore iron ore jumps 3 pct, spot eyes best week in 10 months

Published 11/03/2016, 03:24 pm
Updated 11/03/2016, 03:30 pm
© Reuters.  Singapore iron ore jumps 3 pct, spot eyes best week in 10 months

* Dalian iron ore steady, bourse steps in to curb volatility

* Spot iron ore up nearly 10 pct on week after Monday spike

By Manolo Serapio Jr

MANILA, March 11 (Reuters) - Iron ore futures in Singapore jumped more than 3 percent on Friday as traders piled back into the market after wild price swings earlier this week, while Chinese iron ore futures steadied as authorities moved to curb high volatility.

After giving up about half of Monday's record 19.5 percent spike, spot iron ore is still up almost 10 percent for the week, which would mark its biggest such gain since April last year.

Sharp rises in Chinese steel prices helped fuel the rally in iron ore although many analysts doubt the longevity of the gains, citing the continuing risks of a slowing Chinese economy on steel demand which shrank for a second year in a row in 2015.

The most-traded May iron ore on the Singapore Exchange SZZFK6 was up 3.1 percent at $52.75 a tonne by 0406 GMT, just off a session high of $52.88.

"We view the current strength in iron ore prices as short-lived given fundamentals remain weak," Australia and New Zealand Banking Group analysts wrote in a report.

"However, a broad improvement in sentiment, backed by recent policy measures in China, could be enough to limit the downside and keep prices above recent lows."

On the Dalian Commodity Exchange, May iron ore DCIOcv1 slipped 0.2 percent to 437.50 yuan ($67.42) a tonne after the exchange moved to rein in volatility in trading.

The bourse will remove from March 14 a 50 percent discount on trading fees for one transaction type and will strengthen monitoring, an exchange spokesperson said on Thursday. most-traded May iron ore contract on Dalian surged by its exchange-set limit on Monday and Tuesday, fueling the rally in Singapore futures and the spot benchmark.

Iron ore for immediate delivery to China's Tianjin port .IO62-CNI=SI dropped a further 3.7 percent to $57.40 a tonne on Thursday, after Monday's jump, according to The Steel Index (TSI).

The spot iron ore market has been quiet for the past two days "as buyers waited for a discernible price trend", TSI said.

"I feel like prices will soften further after rising so fast. Steel traders bought a lot of steel inventory over the last one month," said a Singapore-based iron ore trader.

On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, construction-used rebar dropped 1.2 percent to $2,121 yuan a tonne.

Rebar and iron ore prices at 0406 GMT

Contract

Last

Change Pct Change SHFE REBAR MAY6

2121

-26.00

-1.21 DALIAN IRON ORE DCE DCIO MAY6

437.5

-1.00

-0.23 SGX IRON ORE FUTURES MAY

52.75

+1.60

+3.13 THE STEEL INDEX 62 PCT INDEX

57.4

-2.20

-3.69 METAL BULLETIN INDEX

57.92

-0.10

-0.17

Dalian iron ore and Shanghai rebar in yuan/tonne Index in dollars/tonne, show close for the previous trading day ($1 = 6.4890 Chinese yuan)

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