Total 339 Posts
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
Capacity utilization on the Asia-North Europe services fell to their lowest levels since 2020, with no signs of a rebound in cargo volumes. Average utilization has dropped below 90% forcing carriers to slash rates with the SCFI tumbling by a further 15.2% last week. Although carriers are gunning for another round of rate hikes to bring base rates back up to $4,000/feu, it will be a tall order as current spot rates have already dropped below $2,000/feu with some carriers even extending the curre
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.
The widening disconnect between faltering container freight rates and the continued strengthening of containership charter rates is unsustainable, with the ratio of the charter rate index to the CCFI currently at a historic high. Although charter rates and freight rates tend to move in tandem, there have been various periods in the past where they have diverged due to differences in demand and supply dynamics in the charter and freight markets. The Red Sea diversions have driven the widening di
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 SCFI rebound on the North Europe route proved to be short-lived as carriers continued to slash rates. The SCFIS is also expected to resume its slide after the surprise 6% gain on 10 March, mirroring the weakness in the spot market where average survey rate quotations are still falling. Capacity utilization remains stubbornly poor, with no pick up in demand to be seen. Capacity discipline remains scarce, with the OCEAN Alliance still planning to proceed with the launch of their new NEU3 serv
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
The planned Asia-Europe general rate increase in March is falling flat with rampant rate cutting jeopardizing plans to raise rates to $4,000/feu. Maersk was again singled out for its aggressive price cuts, with rate offers below $3,000/feu being offered through the end of March. Despite its much touted 90% reliability target for the new Gemini Cooperation network, Maersk has evidently failed to convince its customers to pay a premium and had to resort to price cuts to fill its ships. Forward c