Iron ore futures up despite lacklustre China economic data

The most-traded January iron ore on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange was up 1% at 736 yuan ($101.16) per metric ton, as of 0330 GMT. On the Singapore Exchange, the benchmark September iron ore rose 0.4% to $100.9 a metric ton.

China’s crude steel output in July eased 0.34% from the prior month, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday, because of production restrictions in Tangshan city in northern China and Sichuan province in the southwest. Meanwhile, July industrial output and retail sales growth slowed and undershot forecasts, adding to a raft of recent weak data, suggesting policymakers may need to step up support measures to shore up a faltering economy.

Less than an hour before the data release, China’s central bank unexpectedly cut key policy rates for the second time in three months. Adding pressure, property investment in China fell 8.5% in the first seven months from the same period a year earlier, after sliding 7.9% in January-June, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). China’s largest private real estate developer Country Garden is seeking to delay payments on a private onshore bond for the first time, the latest sign of a stifling cash crunch in the property sector, piling pressure on Beijing to step in.

Adding to worries about contagion risk, a major Chinese trust company that traditionally had sizable exposure to real estate, Zhongrong International Trust Co, has missed its repayment obligations on some investment products. The most-active rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange inched up 0.3%, hot-rolled coil declined 0.1%, wire rod lost 0.1%, and stainless steel climbed 1.2%. Dalian coking coal and coke grew 0.3% and 1.3%, respectively.