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Iron-ore futures surged to a near
three-month high on Monday, propelled by improving demand outlook on the back
of top consumer China's latest property stimulus and a raft of monetary easing
policies.
The most-traded January iron ore contract
on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) DCIOcv1 jumped 10.71% to finish at
821.5 yuan ($117.14) a metric ton.
Earlier in the session, the contract hit
835 yuan, its highest since July 16.
The benchmark November iron ore SZZFX4 on
the Singapore Exchange surged 9.76% to $112.05 a ton as of 0710 GMT, after
hitting an intraday high of $113, its highest since July 5.
Both benchmarks posted gains of more than
10% last week.
China's central bank on Sunday said it
would tell banks to lower mortgage rates for existing home loans before Oct.
31, as part of sweeping policies to support the country's beleaguered property
market, the largest steel consumer.
This came after Beijing unveiled its
biggest stimulus since the pandemic last Tuesday and lowered interest rates
last Friday to pull the economy out of its deflationary funk and back toward
the government's growth target.
Additionally, the three big cities -
Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai - lifted key home purchase restrictions.
"Efforts to reduce inventory of unsold
property will significantly shorten the time to when new construction activity
will emerge," ANZ analysts said.
Shares of Chinese property developers
soared in response to the stimulus, with the mainland's CSI 300 Real Estate
index .CSI000952 jumping around 9%.
Lingering expectation of strong fiscal
stimulus ahead in the world's second-largest economy also supported the
persistent upward momentum, analysts said.
Other steelmaking ingredients on the DCE
also soared to over two-month highs, with coking coal DJMcv1 and coke DCJcv1 up
10.98% and 10.99%, respectively.
Steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures
Exchange advanced sharply. Rebar SRBcv1, hot-rolled coil SHHCcv1 and wire rod
SWRcv1 all added about 7% to hit the upper limit of their trading bands, while
stainless steel SHSScv1 rallied about 3.6%.