China commodities rout continues as iron ore, coking coal tumble

Commodities futures in China are diving further, led by another large drop in the price of iron ore to a six-month low.

Iron ore futures were down by their daily limit of 8 per cent on the Dalian Commodity Exchange at Rmb458.5 ($66.48). Yesterday, futures were down by as much as the daily limit, before easing to close 5.3 per cent lower.

Dalian coking coal futures were off 4.1 per cent at Rmb1,028.5 a 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 a tonne, pushing lower from a Thursday fall of 1.1 per cent.

On the Shanghai futures exchange Copper had dropped 0.8 per cent to $45,190 per tonne, while gold had dropped 1.1 per cent to Rmb277.9 a gram.