Ferrous markets halt declines: Correction

Corrects trade as BRBF in paragraph 6

Asia-Pacific ferrous markets rebounded today, a day after most Chinese futures fell sharply, as Beijing injected cash and defended the yuan to stabilise outlooks.

China's central bank injected net 400bn yuan ($57.2bn) into the financial markets today, the most in a year, and set the yuan reference rate at 6.9779 to the dollar, stronger than 6.9249 yesterday.

May futures for rebar and hot-rolled coil (HRC) on the Shanghai futures exchange both closed at Yn3,312/t, up by 1.6pc and 1.4pc, respectively. The contracts closed lower by 8pc yesterday, the limit for a single-day decline, under pressure from the coronavirus outbreak.

Dalian commodity exchange (DCE) May coking coal futures rose by 1.5pc to Yn1,198.50/t, and by 0.9pc to Yn1,778/t for met coke.

China's domestic iron ore prices weakened today, while seaborne prices strengthened. Traders lowered portside offers in the morning by Yn10-15/wet metric tonne (wmt) to Yn635-640/wmt at Qingdao.

March deliveries of PB fines 62pc basis traded at $82.60/dry metric tonne (dmt) and BRBF 62pc basis traded at $85.10/dmt on the Globalore platform today, around $3-5/dmt higher than the Argus 62pc fines index, which fell by $3.50/dmt to $79.85/dmt yesterday.

SGX 62pc iron ore fines futures for February rose by $2.13/t, or 2.7pc, to $80.75/t in afternoon trade, while March rose by $1.92/t to $79.93/t. DCE iron ore futures fell by 2.6pc to Yn591/t.

By Chris Newman