Chart of the day: Iron ore springs a surprise

For ages much has been made of the woes of iron and steel, blame apportioned to everyone and anything except the industry itself; this year’s no different. But look carefully at the chart of the price of an iron ore futures contract on the Dalian exchange. The down trend since 2013 has been broken, slow and cautious attempts at basing started in April 2015, and more recently a rounded bottom pattern formed over the New Year. Taking this to heart, the market rallied from 311 yuan per metric tonne to 501 this week. A break through a skinny cloud and moving averages crossing suggest a turn in the long term trend is highly likely.

Nicole Elliott is a technical analyst