Iron ore prices are now back in a bull market phase with a sharp rise on Monday taking the rise since the lows of late October to more than 20%.
It was something of a lonely rally for iron ore as the prices of gold, oil, silver and copper all eased.
For the local market the higher iron ore price is an isolated bit of good news with the overnight futures market showing a fall of around 18 points on the ASX 200.
That’s despite sold rises seen for the Dow and the S&P 500, though the Nasdaq sold off again.
The Metal Bulletin’s index iron ore price ended at $US72.68 a tonne, the highest since September 14.
That was a rise of 3.7% ($US2.57) and took the increase since late October to just on 21%.
Iron ore prices rose after surges in both the steel and futures markets in China and Asia according tot he Metal Bulletin..
Friday’s move past $US70 a tonne saw the share prices of resource giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto rise by 1.6% rise to $28.01 and 1.2% to $72.05, respectively.
Also helping was a belated upgrade by brokers at Citi which issued of upgrades to “buy” after making positive revisions to its commodity price forecasts.
South32 jumped 1.6% to $3.26 and Fortescue shares were up 1.6% to $4.62.
Gold futures eased 0.4% on Comex in New York to around $US1,277 an ounce, silver eased half a per cent to $USUS16.305 an ounce, copper lost just under 0.1% to $US3.09 a pound and oil lost 1.5% to trade around $US57.45 a barrel.
That sell off in the Nasdaq was because investors discovered the Trump tax cuts will also cut tax credits for research and development (hitting tech stocks) and especially the rapidly growing renewables sector.
