FreightWaves Ocean

‘Robinhood effect’ spread unevenly across tanker stocks

raging bull statue

It is the year of the retail investor, and listed shipowners, like other public companies, have seen a wave of newcomers buy their stock.

Shipowners are happy. They need all the buyers they can get to boost their tepid trading liquidity. Retail buyers of shipping stocks are not so happy. In the case of several tanker equities, retail enthusiasm appears to have been heavily countered by institutional selling.

Diverging from fundamentals

Retail investors are getting a lot of ink, much of it...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/robinhood-effect-spread-unevenly-across-tanker-stocks

US crude, gas and coal exports are all flashing red

crude tanker

Fracking and horizontal drilling get top billing for the past decade’s meteoric rise in U.S. energy output, but don’t forget the overseas buyer in the role of best supporting actor. U.S. production would never have surged as it did without exports — and those exports are now in trouble.

After years of steep rises, trend lines are simultaneously turning negative thanks to COVID-19. From crude oil to liquefied natural gas (LNG) to coal, outbound volumes of U.S. energy commodities are falling, in...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/us-crude-gas-and-coal-exports-are-all-flashing-red

Long Beach rebounds as China container volumes surge

container port

Politically, the U.S. and China are barely on speaking terms. Trade-wise, they’re still very much in bed together.

Cargo from China is accounting for an even greater share of inbound container volumes than before the coronavirus crisis, according to new customs data.

China flows have pushed up trans-Pacific eastbound spot freight rates this month and helped blunt volume fallout along the U.S. West Coast. In fact, the Port of Long Beach disclosed on Tuesday that it had handled 312,590 loaded...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/long-beach-rebounds-as-china-container-volumes-surge

Can shipping shares catch wave of (ir)rational exuberance?

Wall Street

To the growing bewilderment of skeptics, equities continue their rally, trading as if the recovery is nigh, there will be no second-wave lockdowns, and government largesse will offset unemployment.  

The S&P 500 closed at 3,232on Monday, up 44% from its March 23 low and down less than 1% year-to-date (YTD), effectively erasing its losses for the year.

“The broader equity market is beginning to buy into the idea of a rapid recovery to the extent which just two months ago I would never have...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/can-shipping-shares-catch-wave-of-ir-rational-exuberance

Q&A: Inside the early warning system of global trade

container ships

There have been pandemics before, but never at a time when the global economy was this interconnected. There have been global recessions before, but never one driven by the mix of forces seen in 2020.

With all the uncertainty, there’s an intense hunger for leading indicators, and ocean shipping — particularly container shipping — has offered an early warning system ever since the coronavirus crisis began in late January.

Container lines “blank” (cancel) sailings well ahead of scheduled departures...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/qa-inside-the-early-warning-system-of-global-trade

US sanctions target Greek tankers loaded with Venezuelan crude

crude tanker

U.S. sanctions had a huge impact on crude-tanker supply and spot rates in 2019, when the tankers of China’s COSCO (Dalian) were sidelined after carrying Iranian crude.

Will it happen again in 2020?

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Tuesday that it had sanctioned four tankers and their operating companies because they loaded crude oil for export in Venezuela.

These include two very large crude carriers (VLCCs; tankers that carry 2 million barrels of crude...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/us-targets-greek-tankers-carrying-venezuelan-crude

Remember the trade war? It’s back and at risk of escalating

President Trump

The U.S.-China Phase One trade deal is not dead, but it is on life support.

The two superpowers’ deteriorating relations in the wake of a Chinese security law covering Hong Kong has implications for container, tanker, dry bulk and gas shipping demand, as well as shipping stocks.

President Donald Trump alleged in a speech on Friday that China “ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before,” and “got away with theft” of hundreds of billions of dollars a year; that China “raided our...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/remember-the-trade-war-its-back-and-at-risk-of-heating-up

Commentary: What US business post-COVID can learn from shipping post-2008

Manhattan

The focus on ocean shipping vis-a-vis COVID-19 has been on what the outbreak means to the economy and what the economy means to vessel demand and freight rates.

But there’s a different way to look at it: by focusing instead on what ocean shipping has to say about the COVID-19-era economy.

The global financial crisis in 2008-2009 differs in many ways from the current crisis. Even so, what befell shipowners in the decade after the Great Recession offers telling parallels to what U.S. businesses...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/commentary-what-us-business-post-covid-can-learn-from-shipping-post-2008

BREAKING: New York terminal operator sues Maersk for ‘tens of millions’

container terminal

Container carriers and terminal operators could increasingly come to blows as COVID-19 rewrites the global business equation. A now-escalating court battle in New York could be a taste of things to come.

In one corner: Maersk Line and Hamburg Sud, owned by AP Moller Maersk (APM), the largest container carrier operator in the world, with group revenues of $39 billion in full-year 2019.

In the other corner: Vancouver, British Columbia-based Global Container Terminals (GCT), which operates the...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/breaking-new-york-terminal-operator-sues-maersk-for-tens-of-millions

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