Iron Ore Prices Slump Following Tightening Regulatory Supervision And Futures Trading Constraints

Iron ore futures prices slumped 2.91% overnight and extended its rout into today’s morning session, losing 3.11% as of CST 9:31 on November 16. The decline came after the National Development and Reform Commission said last night that it will send officials to the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) to jointly study on how to enhance supervision on the iron ore market in response to recent irrational price spike. Meanwhile, the DCE also issued a risk management measure last night, stipulating that starting from the trading time on November 17, 2023 (that is, the night trading session on November 16), non-futures company members or customers are not allowed to open more than 500 lots of positions on the iron ore futures I2401, I2402, I2403, I2404 and I2405 contracts in a single day, and the number of newly opened positions in other iron ore futures contracts shall not exceed 2,000 lots in a single day. Moreover, starting from the settlement on November 20, 2023, the margin level for speculative trading of iron ore futures contracts will be adjusted from 13% to 15%.