Total 194 Posts
Customs of PRC reported foreign trade figures on 7 Jun, for which the market was negatively surprised by the 7.5% YoY drop in May whereas analysts were expecting just 0.4% decline. But what the market have missed may be more concerning for container shipping, in our view, which is the sequential drop in export since March. Since 2014, Chinese export has always grown sequentially and on average 14% from March through May, an usual seasonal pattern. This year, the Chinese exports fell 10% in t
China's April PMI New Export Order came out as 47.6 on 30 April, suggesting Chinese export order experienced sequential contraction in April comparing to that of March. Reading through to the volume, the China PMI export orders suggests container volume may experience sequential softening in May or even June relative to the previous months. Though, it is important to read this data bearing in mind that China could be losing export market share to the ASEAN exporters (read here [https://www.liner
UPS share price dropped by 10% overnight (Apr 26) on bearish management guidance particularly on the domestic package, which offers a read-through to the demand for container shipping. On what may indicate the latest development of US retail sales, UPS's domestic package volume dropped 5% YoY in 1Q 2023, an acceleration from the 4% YoY drop in the previous quarter. Moreover, management in an CNBC interview suggested that the decline in the domestic package volume accelerated markedly during Ma
China's March PMI New Export Order came out as 50.4 in the morning session of 31 March, suggesting Chinese export order may have seen marginal sequential growth in March comparing to February. But March's 50.4 comparing to February's 52.4 means growth decelerated over the past month. Softness of exports from China could be a combination of the market share losses and overall soft demand in the western hemisphere. In terms of container shipment volume, China has been losing market share to the
Additional data for 30 departures returned today by our algo and there was little change, i.e the utilization level for vessels departed this week so far has been very high. Spot freight rates as represented by Shanghai Container Shipping Index (SCFI) has the first up move in a year. SCFI is usually trend sensitive in the way that if it moves up in one week, the chance of it moving up in the next week is over 50%. SCFI has published 720 editions since its inception in March 2009. Of these 720
Capacity utilization of all Inter-Regional trades and the 4 main east-west trades for vessels that have departed during the first 4 days of this week ( i.e. between 26 Mar and 29 Mar) moved up to level have not been seen since August last year. Although there has been week to week volatility, this set of data has been trending up since reaching a recent cycle low in week 5 of 2023. This 2-month up trend has to be looked at in connection with the sequential increase in capacity deployed into th
The cyclical or short term trend is the down turn in the container shipping volume , which has seen global port throughput falling for 5 consecutive months since September 2022, driven by the destocking cycle in the US, soft housing market in the US impacting particularly the housing related shipments, inflation that reduces western consumers' disposable income, rising share of services relative to goods in consumption. The secular trend or the long term trend maybe the fall in China's contrib
The latest China manufacturing PMI new export order index reported as 52.4 before market open on 1 March, suggesting the strongest expansion since March 2011. (source: National Bureau of Statistics). The PMI indices measure sequential changes and value above 50 for this index suggests expansion. Since January 2011 this index has produced only 51 expansionary values against 95 contractionary values. This latest print of 52.4 however contrasts with the anecdotal stories we heard about the current
This week's preliminary FE-WCNA utilization data dropped below 70% for the first since we started tracking this data series in Q4 2020. These preliminary data only covered 3-days of this week, i.e. 13-15 Feb, where 11 vessels have left Far East to head to West Coast North America. Among the 11 vessels, the utilization level ranges from 44% to 88% but all except one were at or below 80%. The average utilization in this route have been around 83% over the last two years. Resumption of services
The intra-Asia tradelanes are coming under the most pressure at the moment with rates on several key corridors already slipping to pre-2020 levels as capacity that were previously redeployed to the Transpacific are now returning to Asia. Total containership capacity employed on the Intra-Far East routes is rising again after a 2 year decline, as ships that were redeployed to the more lucrative long-haul trades now returning in large numbers. Intra-FE capacity peaked in early 2020 at 3m teu bu