During the last 10 days the global market has sent out very mixed signals, indicating that uncertainty over the future direction of prices is growing. Scrap levels have recovered, supporting billet and longs prices, but iron ore continued to remain range-bound.

The apparent recovery of CIS billet prices at the beginning of last week, for example, aligned perfectly with market expectations in the end of the previous week, but have failed to last.

There have been just a few large sales of billets to traders who were buying for back-to- back sales and positions, although some of the latter look to have morphed into back-to- back sales towards mid-week. This is because buyers' workable price expectations remained significantly below offers, market participants say.

CIS producers indicated $500/tonne fob as their working price initially, and managed to sell at $480-490/t fob range to traders. But modest demand coupled with ample availability from Mediterranean suppliers created tight competition, indicating the need for sellers to correct offers before further sales can be made, market sources suggest.