A mixture of trends were forecast for steel, iron ore and coking coal prices in 2020 at the London Metal Exchange Ferrous Focus session this week.
"Steel is going to drift a bit lower, but not collapse," Citi research analyst Tracy Liao told delegates on Thursday October 31, "[and] iron ore will go quite a bit lower, whereas coking coal prices will go up." Liao said that while there has been slowdown in growth over the past two years in many regions, there was now an expectation, in advanced economies at least, to see a bottoming out in the first half of next year.China, meanwhile, has had a strong performance in the real estate sector with low single-digit growth in real estate sales, she said, while in infrastructure - the second largest end-user sector for ferrous products - the year-to-date performance had been well below expectations and was struggling for...