Macquarie Wealth Management recently said the wider market had continued to “underestimate the impact of Chinese import restrictions” as it forecast the Japanese annual thermal coal benchmark to fall by 22% to $US64 a tonne starting from April.
Morgan Stanley, which is forecasting the new Japanese financial year thermal coal benchmark to hit $73/t, recently said that declining Chinese coal and power consumption were part of “persistent uncertainties in China’s materials-intensive growth cycle” according to Bloomberg.
The investment bank warned that the rally in Newcastle-indexed thermal coal prices would last for days, or weeks, longer but not months.
“Newcastle prices have advanced 12.4% since January 23, according to Globalcoal data,” the news wire reported.
