Iron ore futures rise on easing China COVID curbs

Iron ore futures rose on Thursday, as the easing of strict COVID-19 curbs in some cities in top steelmaker China following a recent string of protests lifted demand sentiment.

The most-traded January iron ore on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange TIO1! rose 0.1% to 767.5 yuan ($108.53) a tonne as of 0215 GMT.

On the Singapore Exchange, the benchmark December iron ore (SZZFZ2) was up 1.4% at $102.05 a tonne.

Market sentiment was buoyed by the apparent shift in China's zero-COVID strategy. However, weakness in the property sector persists - new home sales by the 100 biggest producer developers dropped 26% year-on-year to CNY 559bn in November, ANZ said in a research note.

The most-active rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange RRBF1! rose 0.3%, hot-rolled coil EHR1! rose 0.6%, wire rod (SWRcv1) rose 0.5%, meanwhile stainless steel HHRC1! fell 0.1%.

Dalian coking coal ACT1! and coke (DCJcv1) fell 2.2% and 1.4% respectively.

($1 = 7.0721 yuan)