News

December 15, 2008

Shipping, hogs and Christmas trees – all up!

Sally White

On the face of it, markets could have been forecasting some cheer for 2009, shipping in particular. The benchmark Baltic Dry Index, which covers the transport of most agriculture products, took a turn for the better, rising by 53 points to 764. Unfortunately, this is likely to prove a false dawn as brokers report this came on a drive to fix prices before the holidays, compressing a lot of business into one week.

Charter prices are down at operating levels, so lay-ups are increasing. This, says Braemar Seascope, should indicate that “we should be at the bottom of the market soon”. Qualifying that hope it adds that the level could be held “for some time.” Right now there are reports that “one very large container ship left Singapore with less than 50 boxes on board” against a capacity of at least 7,500.  

Prospects for farm margins look pretty gloomy as consumers continue to tighten their...