The Baltic Dry Index has retraced most of its 55% surge from March, yet the mild recovery in shipping fees since early last year appears to have revived appetite for a renewed wave of consolidation in the shipping space.
As Axiom Capital's Gordon Johnson points out, Iron Ore stocks at Chinese ports just hit a new record high in the last week of 2016, even as the spot price of iron ore staged a dramatic comeback over 2016, closing near the highs of the year. However, as Johnson notes, if history is any precedent, such record stocks "carry an ominous sign for iron ore prices." Here's why.
After jumping by the biggest 1-wk increase since Oct. ’15, +2.7% w/w, iron ore inventories at Chinese ports reached a new record high of 114.0Mmt on 12/30.
Submitted by Danielle DiMartino Booth via Money Strong,
Mention Preppies and visions of Izods with popped collars and boat shoes may come to mind. The Official Preppy Handbook, published in 1980, regaled readers with the “merits of pink and green,” instructing that, “socks are frequently not worn on sporting occasions or on social occasions for that matter. This provides a year-round beachside look that is so desirable that comfort may be set aside.”
A Crisis Unlike We Have Seen In Human History
Posted with permission and written by Rory Hall, The Daily Coin (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)
Real demand for steel in China dropped at least 7% in April from the year before, according to Citigroup’s Tracy Liao estimates, so it should not be a total surprise that the frenzied speculative buying in Iron Ore, Rebar, and various other industrial metals in China has crashed back to reality as volumes plunge, dragging The Baltic Dry Freight Index with it as yet another government-manipulated 'signal' collapses into a miasma of malinvestment and unintended consequences.