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FFA market: No heat and not much light for dry bulk freight

FFA market: No heat and not much light for dry bulk freight
It was Diwali, the Festival of Lights, this week and boy, how the market could have done with some illumination.

There was little warmth either in terms of volume traded and the horrible reality is sinking in: increased ore trade in October did nothing for capesizes, coal imports cannot help panamaxes and supramaxes are floundering.

Singapore’s early week holiday and the general lack of direction from physical left little reason to trade and little followed, save doom and gloom. Asian traders returned and traded the volume down on TCs and routes, with better volumes the only consolation.

A little more physical activity could not prevent rates slipping further with November priced at a level which indicates no hope of a rebound in rates before month end, leaving only December to bring any hope to Q4.

Panamaxes saw further declines on prompt while further out we saw some relative stability, with more of the same as the week went on and another sharp index drop fuelling further declines on prompt. The lows were tested on prompt until some support nudged the market off the bottom.

The over-tonnaged physical market continued to wreak havoc on paper with a wave of early selling which drove early selling with the nearby again taking the brunt and the deferred a touch more stable.

What to say about supramaxes? A softer feel and a pretty flat curve but the prompt continued to soften and the back end slowly got picked off. Thursday’s index was -$110 with the decline showing no sign of slowing down just yet. Roll on Thanksgiving but look out for turkeys.

Contact FIS: http://freightinvestorservices.com/freight-derivatives/ffas/