Dry bulk FFA market: In the absence of good news...

Shipments of iron ore to China from Port Hedland, which handles a fifth of the world's seaborne iron ore trade, fell 17.6% in January from the previous month after a tropical cyclone closed the port temporarily.

Workers at 15 Chinese coal mines will, unusually, be allowed to leave their posts during the Lunar New Year holidays, taking some pressure off a sector burdened by massive overcapacity.

Global steelmakers face another year of pain with more capacity closures and job losses expected, even as prices start to stabilise after painful production cuts, depleted stockpiles and rising trade barriers.

Monster harvests, lingering El Nino rains and a plunging currency could overstretch Brazil's export infrastructure in 2016, threatening logistic-linked losses for bulk commodities traders.

And so to freight, where the eve of the Chinese New Year brought some profit takers to the capesize market and we had for a change, some intra-day volatility. However, with the physical market still in the doldrums it is hard to see the market pushing any further until after Asian participants return.

On panamax, Thursday’s buyers ran into a wall of sellers after an index that was no better than expected. Although supported at the current levels the market remains rangebound and unlikely to move much next week. Supramax paper had a busier week but ended quietly in comparison. With the holidays looming, interest from Asia was very limited with prompt slipping and the index continuing to fall as expected.

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