Tug-of-war between longs and shorts in macro policies; iron ore price moves downwards after a higher opening and fluctuates considerably [SMM Brief Comment]

Today, DCE iron ore futures opened higher and then fluctuated downward, with the most-traded contract I2509 eventually closing at 708, up 0.35% for the day. Traders' enthusiasm for selling was moderate; steel mills adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude, with some purchasing as planned, resulting in a generally moderate market transaction atmosphere. In the Shandong region, the mainstream transaction prices of PB fines were around 760-765 yuan/mt, up 0-5 yuan/mt from yesterday's prices; in the Tangshan region, the transaction prices of PB fines were approximately 770-780 yuan/mt, also up 0-5 yuan/mt from yesterday's prices.

This morning, at a State Council press conference, a series of macroeconomic stimulus policy packages were announced, significantly boosting market risk appetite. Meanwhile, the market once again received key signals indicating that the policy to reduce crude steel production was about to be implemented. Bulls and bears engaged in intense competition around policy expectations and fundamental logic, driving iron ore futures prices to fluctuate considerably. From a fundamental data perspective, according to the latest weekly survey by SMM, due to the postponement of maintenance plans at individual steel mills, the blast furnace operating rate among sampled steel mills reached 88.96%, up 0.07 percentage points WoW; the daily average pig iron production of sampled steel mills reached 2.4579 million mt, an increase of 4,400 mt WoW, continuing to maintain a high-level operation trend and providing bottom support for spot iron ore prices.

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