Mongrel Most of what you have stated is either common knowledge...

Mongrel
Most of what you have stated is either common knowledge or
just plain wrong!

PLatts do set their price from an index but it is their Index.
No body was suggesting they just made up a figure which wasn't
market related.
They used to publish a list of cargoes from which the spot is derived
but they don't anymore and even if they did it would not be possible
to get a live feed of these cargoes as the prices were only published at
the end of the day!

All the major Iron Ore producers follow the PLatts spot price
which is published once per day!
We know this because they report that their forward sold cargoes
prices are derived from this figure!
The VALE CEO Murilo Ferreira in a report about year ago said that he
looks at Platts spot price everyday!

You wrote:
"Perversely, some iron ore producers, like AGO and even Rio, use the index to sell their iron ore. When this is the case, it is usually done on a 3 month rolling average basis. Any IO price movement you see today is unlikely to feed in to a producer's bottom line for some time. It is usually only the smaller "odd batch" or spot market IO producers who are completely open to daily bidding - although this may include big producers who have out of spec or excess production not covered by longer term supply agreements."

Just wrong! lol

These companies shouldn't be put in the same boat!
But even if they were you would still be wrong!
AGO reported at the end of last year that they had forward sold 70% of their cargoes at
a discount relative to PLatts spot price. So large portion of the sales are sold daily relative to spot price.
All these forward sold cargoes from the big companies are sold with respect to Platts Spot price.

There is nothing bizarre about these companies using Platts for their bench mark pricing!
Just like there is nothing bizarre about McGraw Hill or S&P publishing credit ratings!
It's been their business for over 100 years!

The above is why the Platts spot price is the only price which is of importance to the AGO SP!

Cargoes through out the day may well come in $5 more or less/dmt but it is irrelevant!

I have never known the barcharts futures page to be of any value other than for those who are

buying and selling IO futures on the Singapore Metal exchange!

Sites like Metal Bulletin and U-metal are good for judging market sentiment and U-metal

publishes a list of prices for different cargoes arriving at Chinese ports that day. It also publish

first hand reports of what Iron Ore traders are saying that day.

The Dalian futures has always given a very good indication of what to expect from the spot

price that night. In its first few months of operating it seemed to be uncanny in its ability to

predict the spot price, but now it is not so great. However if there is a big move in the Dalian futures prices you can pretty much take it to the bank that spot will follow.

Just to be clear once more the Spot price is the one that all the major banks and brokers refer to.

It is the one that commsec publish everyday!

It is platts spot price 62%Fe CFR Tianjin Port.

The following is a list of prices PLatts send to their subscribers everyday:

China Import Iron Ore Spot Reference Prices, CFR Tianjin Port:

- 62% Fe fines /DMT USD
- 58% Fe fines /DMT USD

China Import Iron Ore Spot Reference Prices, CFR Qingdao Port:

- 62% Fe 2% Al fines /DMT USD
- 63.5/63% Fe fines /DMT USD
- 65% Fe fines /DMT USD