China commodities rout rolls into second day as iron ore drops 6.5%

Commodities futures in China are down again, led lower by another big drop in the price of iron ore to a six-month low.

Iron ore futures are off 6.5 per cent at Rmb466 per tonne after dipping by their daily limit of 8 per cent on the Dalian Commodity Exchange to Rmb458.5 ($66.48). On Thursday they were down by as much as the daily limit, before easing to close 5.3 per cent lower.

Dalian coking coal futures were down 3.9 per cent at Rmb1,030 per tonne, after closing down 3.7 per cent the previous session, during which they had come just shy of limit-down with a dip of 7.9 per cent.

Futures for thermal coal, used in electricity generation, was down 1.6 per cent on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange at Rmb512.6 a tonne, pushing lower from a Thursday fall of 1.1 per cent.

On the Shanghai futures exchange copper had dropped 1 per cent to $45,090 per tonne, while gold had dropped 0.6 per cent to Rmb279.25 a gram.

Losses weren’t limited to commodities, with the Shanghai Composite index dropping 0.8 per cent and the Shenzhen Composite off 0.7 per cent. The cost of short-term borrowing in China’s interbank market edged down – if only just – from a multi-year high on Friday as domestic liquidity continued to tighten amid a regulatory crackdown on financial risk.