Iron Ore Futures Market Will Remain Bearish In April

In early March, no stronger-than-expected policy from the Two Sessions made market sentiment bearish. Iron ore market was mainly dominated by fundamentals. In March, there was slow restart of projects under construction this year amid weather fallout. In addition, special government bonds not implemented yet and the ban on new infrastructure projects in 12 provinces made a big dent in new construction projects in March. Under this circumstance, prolonged construction steel demand cuts made severe inventory backlogs, tipping some steel mills into more production cuts. No spike in pig iron output prevented iron ore prices from surging. The most-traded iron ore contract continued to pull back.

In April, iron ore prices will still be subject to industry chain. According to SMM, BFs resuming from maintenance have slowly increased pig iron output, while rising overseas shipments and high port stocks will appear. A focus will need to be put on apparent demand for finished steel and its destocking and the implementation of special government bonds. On the whole, iron ore prices in April will remain soft. If there are unexpected positive factors, the prices may rebound, but still to a limited extent.