Iron ore futures in China are going nuts, rallying by over 3.5% on Tuesday.

Here’s the scoreboard just before the mid-session break in China.

SHFE Rebar ¥3,573 , 1.88%
DCE Iron Ore ¥528.50 , 3.63%
DCE Coking Coal ¥1,263.50 , 2.10%
DCE Coke ¥1,933.00 , 1.42%

You just can’t keep a good thing down, right?

At one point iron ore futures in Dalian were up by close to 5%, extending the rally that began to stir on Monday.

The strength in the early parts of Tuesday’s session coincides with further gains in rebar futures traded separately in Shanghai. It also follows a period of weakness late last week that saw the September 2017 iron ore contract lose nearly 7% in just three trading sessions.

It looks like that move is now being reversed, and fast.

According to Westpac, strength in Chinese steel markets, along with heightened levels of speculative activity across futures markets, have acted in tandem to support iron ore prices since spot markets bottomed some six weeks ago.

Should the gain in futures be sustained or built upon in the second half of the session, it points to the likelihood that spot prices may reclaim the $70 a tonne level when Metal Bulletin releases it’s Iron Ore Index at 8.30pm AEST.

On Monday, the spot price for benchmark 62% fines rose by 1.07% to $67.86 a tonne, largely reversing a similarly-sized decline on Friday.

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