By admin 
Iron ore edged lower for a second straight session, with SGX prices falling below US$103/t in the early trading session today. The recent announcement from China for greater fiscal and monetary support next year failed to lift sentiment as the market continues to focus on the struggling property market and signs of a weakening steel industry in China.
Iron ore has been one of the worst-performing commodities so far this year, as the outlook from the Chinese downstream industry continues to deteriorate. Meanwhile, the latest estimates from Mysteel show that both crude steel production and apparent consumption in China are expected to decline in 2025. The group forecasts that China’s total crude steel output will fall by 1.3% YoY (around 13mt) to 990mt next year, as domestic steelmakers would be forced to curb output due to intensifying anti-dumping measures and tariff hikes targeting Chinese steel products.
The latest batch of trade numbers from Chinese Customs shows that imports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products fell 17.6% YoY to 280kt in November, while cumulative shipments increased 26% to 3.45mt in the first 11 months of 2024. For steel products, imports fell by almost 23% YoY to 470kt last month, while cumulative imports fell 11.3% YoY to stand at 6.2mt in January-November this year. Looking at the exports, the country’s alumina exports jumped 56.7% YoY to 190kt in November, and year-to-date shipments increased 42.5% YoY to 1.6mt in the first 11 months of the year.
The latest LME COTR report released yesterday shows that speculators reduced net long positions in copper by 2,739 lots for a second consecutive week to 59,307 lots for the week ending 13 December 2024. Similarly, net bullish bets for aluminium fell by 1,191 lots for the second week straight to 113,214 lots at the end of last week, the lowest since the week ending on 11 October 2024. In contrast, money managers increased net bullish bets for zinc by 4,540 lots for a third consecutive week to 37,206 lots (the highest since the week ending 25 October 2024) as of last Friday.