Freight futures opened lower following the announcement of new tariffs by President Trump, which have raised the cumulative tariff on Chinese imports to 54% since the start of his presidency. However, futures recovered throughout the day, ending broadly unchanged as short sellers closed their positions ahead of the long weekend holiday in China. The main contract, EC2506, gained 1.29% for the day. Linerlytica's online quotation system also showed marginal improvements over the past two days, al
Container freight futures edged up by 1–5% week-on-week, driven largely by short covering rather than fresh buying. Overall open interest fell below 90,000 contracts for the first time since the Lunar New Year holidays, a sign of waning market enthusiasm. Open interest in the main EC2506 contract that expires in 3 months dropped by 25% over the week. Trading sentiment has cooled further, with weekly trading volumes tumbling by 24%. The SCFIS released after the close of trading on Monday slipped
Container freight futures dropped in mid-week trading on 19 March after Maersk extended their $2,000 per FEU rate through early April, mirroring a similar move by MSC the week before. The 1 April rate hike has effectively been abandoned even before it started with the EC2504 contracts taking the biggest hit. The EC2506 and EC2508 contracts remain relatively unscathed and are still trading at a 29-37% premium over the SCFIS from last week with open interest up by 4% week-on-week. Average utiliza
Container freight futures retreated over the past week with growing concerns over the carriers’ persistent rate cuts. Despite MSC’s announcement on 12 March to raise its Asia-North Europe base rates to $4,000 per FEU from 1 April, it has provided rate offers at $2,090 per FEU until 6 April, effectively undermining their planned rate hike. Trading volumes fell by 17% week-over-week, while open interest remained largely unchanged as trader wait for fresh directions. Despite last week’s sharp decl
Futures contracts in Shanghai fell by 5-8% this morning as traders opted to follow the liners' daily online freight rate reductions rather than their April 1 GRI announcements. Over the past two days, liners have largely been cutting their online quotations. With insufficient volume and utilization, there is no immediate support for any freight rate increases.
Container freight futures continued to see-saw, as the large drop on 4 March after last week’s 6.2% decline in the SCFIS index was followed by a rebound on 6 March as Maersk’s General Rate Increase (GRI) notice sparked a minor rally. Over the past week, the EC contracts were generally down apart from the April 2025 and February 2026 contracts that traded flat. Average daily trading volumes remained robust, while open interest dropped slightly by 3%. The forward curve remains optimistic, with Ju
The EC contracts gapped down at the open but recovered throughout the day, with longer-dated contracts even closing in positive territory as traders believed MSC Lion's capacity reduction signaled discipline from the liners. However, Lion's capacity adjustment had already been reflected in the sailing schedule ten days prior, and our latest Deployment Watch (based on 22 Feb schedule data) suggests weekly capacity in March would still amount to 288k per week with smaller ships for the Lion servic
Wild swing for the main EC contract, EC2504, this morning going from being 3.8% up in first 30m minutes at market open to down 3.8% before recovering by lunch break. Overnight, CMA CGM dropped its online quotation to below $3,000 per FEU for all March shipments. Maersk released $2300 per FEU after lunch break that put the EC2504 decidedly in the negative territory for the day.
EC freight futures fell sharply on early week trading due to carriers’ aggressive price cuts and the SCFIS’ 11.2% drop published after market close will fuel further price weakness in the coming week. Capacity cuts in early February has translated to a sharp drop in the number of ships departing the Strait of Singapore last week to just 97,950 teu, against the 13-week average of 286,000 teu but will rebound over the coming weeks with March capacity at 288,000 teu. EC prices declined by 3-9% wee
Freight futures of Europe Contracts (EC) declined yesterday and today as Maersk and MSC reduced their quotations to $3,200-$3,940 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU) from $4,000-$4,340 for shipments departing in March12. The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI) to be released after market today is expected to fall by 7-10%, as last week's rate of $1,608 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), or about $2,650 per FEU, remains significantly above current spot rates of around $2,200 per FEU