Markets/Trades

The 1st April Asia-Europe rate hike flopped, with carriers failing to push through their announced rate increases with cargo demand showing no signs of strength. The SCFIS registered its 4th consecutive weekly decline with carriers more willing to slash rates than to cut capacity despite the deteriorating market conditions. Carriers are hoping that worsening port congestion at both Chinese and European & Mediterranean main ports could provide support for another attempt to hike rates, while car

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

The SCFI rates for Asia-North Europe have edged up at the end of last week, rising marginally by 0.9% as carriers’ 1 April rate hike takes hold. However, market conviction remains low as carriers continued to slash their online spot rates to below $3,000 per FEU for April departures, underscoring the widening gulf between rate-hike announcements and market realities. SCFI rates to the Med continued to slip, dropping by 5.4% with no capacity discipline in display after MSC switched their 24k teu

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

Carriers are reducing Asia-North Europe rate quotations for the first week of April, sparking yet another round of failed rate hikes on this route. Although capacity utilization picked up in week 10 due to a large number of sailings skipped, the reprieve will be temporary as carriers are bringing back capacity over the next few weeks including the launch of the Ocean Alliance’s new NEU3 service from week 15 that will add another 8,000-14,000 teu per week . The repeated failures to push through

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