china rein supreme in world commodities, page-4

China Steel PMI for April 50.1 - first move to expansion for 3-4 months i believe. But spot price sliding heavily, while currency remains stable.

Either this is an inflexion point or someone is manipulating one or more of these markets.

According to slide 8 FMG net debt is now $9.4bn - so yes, i;d thought the $3.1bn they just paid off had already been take off the $12b debt figure i;d seen in commentary.

the point remains valid - FMG puts iron ore out at $US70ish per tonne all costs included.

The bears focus on FMG as a short because it is a pure play, it has high liquidity and it has high debt.

What I think the market doesnt generally understand is that FMG actually operated at roughly the same operating cost as BHP and RIO - its the debt repayments that give it a higher total cost per tonne.

So long as FMG keeps this discipline of fast debt repayment, the next benefit of lower cost production + any fall in AUD/USD conversion should significantly cushion FMG.