China’s steel market is heading into the period of peak demand on a very positive note, with prices for steel and iron ore soaring. Data is scarce in the first month of each year but in this issue we first look at market inventories, which appear to have peaked, and …

As the Chinese steel market enters the New Year holiday, steel and steelmaking raw material prices remain high and the market is optimistic that buying after the holidays will be strong. There remains however a fundamental issue, which is that real steel demand should be down in 2017 and raw …

At the end of a year which defied expectations, forecasts for 2017 will have to come loaded with disclaimers. Nevertheless, our original 2016 forecasts also contained plenty to give us confidence. 

In this month's report we look at how steel and raw materials prices have remained strong in November as coking coal supply remains tight and steel inventories low. Beijing has tried to cool prices by cracking down on speculators but this had limited effect.

A key reason is that the …