Shipping adheres to a time-honored tradition: When shipowners make exceptionally high profits, they order a lot of new vessels. When those newbuilds are delivered by the yards, it kills shipowners’ profits.
Such boom-and-bust behavior has been de rigueur for over a century. As London shipbroker J.C. Gould, Angier & Co. wrote in 1894: “The philanthropy of the shipowners is evidently inexhaustible. The amount of tonnage on order guarantees a long continuance of low freight rates.”
The container...