Iron ore dips on renewed Sino-US trade tension

BEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Iron ore futures fell on Monday on concerns over renewed Sino-U.S. trade tensions, although the remaining firm demand in top consumer China, coupled with hopes of more stimulus from Beijing to counter the hit to its economy, curbed losses.

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled additional levies of 100% on China's U.S.-bound exports, along with new export controls on "any and all critical software" by November 1, nine days before existing tariff relief is set to expire.

Trump's sharp tariff hikes, ending an uneasy truce between the world's two largest economies, came after China announced to expand restrictions on rare earth elements, essential to semiconductor and defense sectors.

The renewed Sino-US trade spat soured market sentiment, sending prices of broad commodities down, but it also sparked hopes that China would unveil stimulus to counter negative effect on its economic growth, said analysts.

The benchmark November iron ore SZZFX5 on the Singapore Exchange was 0.15% lower at $106.2 per metric ton, as of 0250 GMT.

The most-traded January iron ore contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) DCIOcv1 slipped 0.13% to 794.5 yuan ($111.44) a ton, as of 0300 GMT.

"Fiscal measures may be implemented to mitigate any potential trade-related shocks if needed," ANZ analysts said in a note.

"Policymakers also have capacity to adjust recent regulatory tightening linked to the anti-involution campaign," said ANZ analysts.

Limiting the downside is also the remaining stable demand with the average daily hot metal output among Chinese steelmakers standing at 2.42 million tons in the week as of October 10, 3.6% higher than the same period last year, data from consultancy Mysteel showed.

Coking coal DJMcv1 and coke DCJcv1, other steelmaking ingredients, fell 2.19% and 1.35%, respectively.

Steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange lost ground. Rebar SRBcv1 shed 1.03%, hot-rolled coil SHHCcv1 slid 0.97%, wire rod SWRcv1 fell 2.46% and stainless steel SHSScv1 lost 1.71%.

($1 = 7.1296 Chinese yuan)