Ocean Freight Comments
Transportation and Export Report: Jay O’Neil, O’Neil Commodity Consulting: You can board the ship, but from a market and rate perspective we are not really going anywhere.
Over the past 4 weeks the Baltic Indices have tried to find reason to rally, but that ship has not been able to leave the dock. Markets remain mostly flat and looking for direction. Owners do not want to reduce rates in face of increasing operating costs, but cargo demand has not been sufficient to allow rates to rise.
The forward months are holding up best as vessel owners and traders still expect to see rates increase when we finally see an end to the current tariff situation.
The charts below represent 2018 YTD totals versus 2017 annual totals for container shipments to Malaysia.
