Miners led the FTSE 100 into the red yesterday without any help from Donald Trump or his furious North Korean rhetoric.

While global markets slumped on yet another day of apocalyptic bombast, investors were looking in the direction of China, which fired a warning shot that a current rally in metal prices may not be sustained. The China Iron and Steel Association said that rising steel prices were “not driven by market demand or reduced market supply” and that the rally was “speculative”.

China is the world’s largest consumer of metals and so what it says on the matter tends to get noticed. Fears that iron ore – the main ingredient in steel, which is mined in vast quantities by the likes of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton – might retrace from its current highs knocked stocks across the sector. Rio fell 109.5p to £33.70 while BHP dropped 39.5p to £13.36.