The price of iron ore has enjoyed its best run for 2015 so far, extending to four the number of trading sessions without red numbers. Three of those sessions have been positive, while Wednesday saw flat trade.
At the end of the latest offshore session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US62.80 a tonne, up 1 per cent from its previous close of $US62.20 a tonne. The commodity is now almost 3 per cent above last Friday's mark of $US61.10 a tonne, its lowest level since May 2009.
The mild recovery comes despite continued worries about waning growth in China, though it will need to extend much further before analysts start declaring a floor has been reached amid a long downtrend.
This week ANZ followed a host of other banks in revising its forecasts for the commodity lower. The Australian bank is now tipping an average price of $US58 a tonne in 2015 and $US60 a tonne in 2016. The numbers represent a cut to previous expectations of as much as 30 per cent.
"While the price slump has been dramatic and hard to monitor, 85 per cent of the seaborne market is still making money," the bank said in a note.
"This makes it difficult to conclude that it looks oversold.
"We think that while large volumes of low cost supply continue to be commissioned, and the big miners take a more realistic view on profit margins, the floor price and long-term price assumptions need to be lowered."
Source: The Wall Street journal
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