DAILY: China's portside thermal coal still lacks support

China's portside thermal coal prices continued their intermittent downturn this week, as bearish sentiment remained dominating in the market with no clear support from supply-demand fundamentals.

On Wednesday, Mysteel assessed the trading prices of 5,500 kcal/kg, 5,000 kcal/kg, and 4,500 kcal/kg NAR thermal coal at Yuan 820/tonne ($112.9/t), Yuan 720/t and Yuan 630/t, respectively, on a FOB northern ports basis with VAT, all unchanged from a day earlier. The stabilization followed a Yuan 5/t fall