Looking ahead, the recovery in iron ore spot prices brings some comfort for Vale investors.

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Such is his commitment to breaking the old system that BHP has recently been testing indexed prices by selling iron ore on spot markets at well below contract prices.

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Miners struggled after spot iron ore fell 4.2% overnight.

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Spot iron prices have are declining.

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Since winning the Masters in April 2005, Woods held an iron grip on the top spot for 281 consecutive weeks.

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In the year to April, spot prices for iron ore and coal (among Australia's biggest exports) rose by 190% and 70% respectively.

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And iron ore is selling on the spot market at close to record prices.

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Iron ore prices have been sliding in the spot market over the past few months as a result of weak demand.

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In response to this, industrial customers for iron ore are asking for shorter iron ore shipment contracts that are priced closer to the spot market prices.

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Commodities like oil, copper and iron ore just relapsed and both metallurgical and steam coal spot prices stick in the dumps despite serious cutbacks in production, worldwide.

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