The freight futures market in China continued its volatile trajectory, driven by a broadly bearish consensus that has kept the forward curve in backwardation. However, intermittent speculative bets—fueled by hopes of further freight rate increases in August and expectations of a relatively mild slack season—have pushed futures prices higher at times.
Following a couple of days of declines on Tuesday (22 July) and Wednesday (23 July), which were triggered by Maersk’s significantly low spot rate