IRON ore has broken a run of nine straight red trading sessions, but only marginally, as traders remain sceptical that unfavourable supply-demand fundamentals will be reversed anytime soon.

At the end of the latest offshore session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US68 a tonne, up 0.1 per cent from its previous close of $US67.90 a tonne, which represented a five-and-a-half-year low.

The commodity is still down almost 50 per cent on the year and 12 per cent in the December quarter after a long-running sell-off driven by concerns about rising supply and flagging demand growth.

Those fears appear to be unresolved to round out the year as major producers like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto offer no sign of curbing plans to further boost supply and Chinese data fail to inspire confidence.

If the commodity fails to climb back to $US70 before the end of the year, it will record its fourth straight quarter of declines greater than 10 per cent, extending its worst run on record.

Analysts are tipping more pain ahead for battered miners with most expecting further falls before the commodity settles in a range of $US65 to $US70 a tonne in the next couple of years.

The Abbott government is even more bearish, this week detailing a forecast of $US60 a tonne in its midyear budget update.

UK-listed stock of both BHP and Rio rose overnight, though respective gains of 0.2 per cent and 0.4 per cent lagged the broader market’s 2 per cent surge.