Iron ore weakness to continue into 2025 and beyond, says Fitch Solutions’ BMI
Looking beyond 2024-2025, BMI analysts maintained their view that iron ore prices will likely follow a multi-year downtrend.
Shanghai Dalu Futures, the Chinese brokerage that has amassed a $1 billion long position on Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) copper, is also very bullish on the metal on ShFE’s subsidiary bourse, data showed on Wednesday.
The brokerage’s large bullish bets have startled some traders as prices for copper, widely used in power and construction, hit 9-1/2-year highs.
Dalu Futures, which built its huge ShFE position in just four days, now holds a long position of 4,166 lots on the May bonded copper contract on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), visible exchange data showed.
That position, equivalent to 20,830 tonnes of copper worth 1.26 billion yuan ($195.36 million) at current prices, is more than 2-1/2 times larger than the next-biggest position holder, the data showed.
Calls to Dalu Futures went unanswered outside of office hours.
It was not immediately clear when Dalu Futures had built the INE position. The data for Feb. 24 showed no day-to-day change but previous data for February was not visible. There was also no data for other contract months.
ShFE’s rule states that it only publishes positioning data when open interest hits 15,000 lots.
Unlike the ShFE base metals contracts, INE copper, launched in November 2020, is open to international investors looking to hedge their exposure to China, the world’s top copper consumer.
Unlike the ShFE price, the INE price does not include value-added tax, since delivery, which can be made from next month, is into bonded warehouses.
($1 = 6.4496 yuan)
(By Tom Daly, Min Zhang, Emily Chow and Mai Nguyen; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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