Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) have indicated sharp fluctuations in both direction during the past week, but failed to sustain the weekly high of $82.50/mt and have fallen back to $79.20/mt CFR China amid the unwinding of speculative positions, traders said on Friday, December 2.
Market sources said that offer levels at the beginning and at the end of the week remained almost the same despite the sharp variations during the week.
“The market has been buffeted by extremely high volatility during the past few days. A loss of $5/mt one day and a gain of $6/mt the very next day is unprecedented in recent times,” an Odisha based miner-exporter said. “Such high volatility makes submitting offers very difficult in the physical market,” he added.
The weekly high of $82.50/mt failed to be sustained largely owing to the unwinding of large speculative positions in futures just as the weekly low of $73.80/mt triggered fresh speculative buying, enabling offers to bounce back, market sources said.
At least two traders said that the rebound in offer price levels after only two days of losses made the market unpredictable, especially as the sharp rise in offer levels was not matched by similar increases in transaction volumes.