Multiple spot rate indexes confirm that shipping rates remain historically strong, reports Freight Waves.
Historic rate boom
The container shipping market calls to mind a famous Mark Twain misquote: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
The historic rate boom appears alive and well — bad news for cargo shippers and good news for container shipping investors.
There was a dip in spot prices over recent months from stratospherically high levels, but downward momentum did not hold. Rates stabilized at extremely high levels, and in several trade lanes, including Asia-to-U.S., rates are now gravitating upward yet again.
Global indexes rising
Different spot rate indexes give different numbers, but they all paint a similar picture of the container-shipping market, one featuring little relief from ultrahigh transport costs.
The Drewry World Container Index, a global composite of main routes, rose 2.3% last week, to $9,262 per forty-foot equivalent unit, up 170% year on year. The index hasn’t been this high since the last week of October.
A different measure, the Shanghai Container Freight Index (SCFI), shows an even more bullish pattern for ocean carriers. After pulling back minimally in October, the SCFI global composite continued its climb and has just reached a new all-time high, rising 1.8% last week and 2.7% the week before that.
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Source: Freight Waves
