Markets/Trades

Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announced on 17 January 2024 the formation of a new long-term global alliance named Gemini Cooperation that will start from February 2025. The move comes one year after the announcement of the break up of the 2M partnership between Maersk and MSC on 25 January 2023 with a 2 year notice period that will take effect from January 2025. Hapag-Lloyd has also given a one year notice to its partners in THE Alliance for an early termination of its participation in the partnership

Be aware if you have been expecting interest rate cut this year: Ocean freight that may have contributed to a chunk of inflation during 2021-2022 have staged a come back. Looking back the past few years, the correlation between freight-to-cargo ratio and US inflation averaged 74%. The take-off in May 2020 and peak in July 2022 of the two lines coincide with each other while the flooring of the freight-to-cargo ratio led the US inflation by few months. The swing from May 2020 to July 2022 for t

It has been a volatile week in the CoFIF market that saw a limit-down day last Tuesday (9 Jan) and a big rally on Friday (12 Jan). Nevertheless, liquidation in the CoFIF market continued for the 3rd week albeit at slower pace. Open interests in CoFIF peaked on 22 December and have since fallen 69%. Further volatile trading is expected this week after the SCFI’s 8.1% gain on the Asia-North Europe route and the SCFIS which jumped by a further 49.7% on 15 Jan after the previous week’s 70.9% rise.

With the stakes raised amidst heightened risks of retaliatory Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, carriers continue to take radically different approaches to their Suez services. CMA CGM and a handful of niche carriers continue to make Suez transits while all of the other main carriers have shifted to the Cape route. The Asia-Europe trade faces a severe capacity shortage in the coming weeks, with some 70 additional ships required to maintain weekly sailings on the 30 regular services on th

Charter rates continue to rally as carriers raise their tonnage demand in tandem with the rising freight rates on Red Sea and Suez routes which has also spilled over into the Transpacific routes last week. Activity is high across all size segments with clear rate gains across the board apart from the smaller ships below 1,300 teu that continued to weaken. Maersk took the 15,258 teu newbuilding ONE FOCUS, in a private deal with ONE for an unspecified period for deployment on the FE-USWC for its

Freight rates surged across the board, with Transpacific SCFI rates rebounding sharply last week. MSC’s rate hike to $5,000/feu to the USWC and $6,900/feu to the USEC from 15 January jolted the rest of the carriers into following suit, with spot rates to both the West Coast and East Coast rising by over 40% last week. Zim has confirmed the introduction of a new PNW string from next week as it seeks to take advantage of the higher transpacific rates rates. SCFI rates made its 8th consecutive we

Option for those wanting to hedge against volatility in container shipping freight rate: CoFIF (Container Freight Index Futures)'s Asia-Europe contracts are trading at something (in $/40'dry) like $2400 for April, $2250 for June, $2147 for August and $1900 for October (our estimates) while liners are offering $3500 for annual contracts while spot rates at the moment is racing up t $5000 or above. Frankly no one know for sure where the freight rates will be in April through October. They could

Week 1 capacity to North Europe was higher than normal with bunching departures on 2 OCEAN Alliance services (NEU6 and 7) and 1 THE Alliance service (FE2) lifting overall capacity to 344,710 teu compared to an average of 284,180 teu in December. Overall capacity will drop from week 2 onwards with severe shortfalls expected in weeks 5 and 6 when capacity drops to 240,700 an 126,700 teu in those 2 weeks when demand will be strong due to the pre-Chinese New Year cargo rush. Although the weekly cap

CoFIF contracts surged in the first 2 trading days of 2024 and traded limit up to their maximum daily caps before softening in the next 3 trading days as the market awaits further signals from the SCFIS. Traders continue to prefer longer dated contracts, indicating a growing consensus that the Red Sea diversion may drag on. Open interest fell for the 2nd week in a row to just half of the peak on 22 December. This week’s trading will be driven by the latest SCFIS assessment on 8 January for the

The number of containerships that has been diverted from the Suez to the Cape route has reached 354 ships since 15 December 2023, accounting for 80% of all the ships moving between the Atlantic/Med basins and the Indian Ocean. The number will continue to grow over the coming week with most of the main carriers currently opting for the Cape route. Only CMA CGM and a small number of niche carriers operating in the Asia to East Med and Baltic markets that have continued to use the Suez route with r