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About That "Surge" In The Baltic Dry Index

Some 'entertainers' among the mainstream media have proclaimed the recent dead-cat-bounce in The Baltic Dry Freight Index as representative of some renaissance in China and thus the world's trade.. and thus why one should "buy buy buy" stocks. However, three quick points of note suggest this is nothing but noise as the index flounders around record lows.

 

First, at 555, The Baltic Dry has just managed to rebound to its previous all-time historical lows from 1986... impressive eh?

 

Second, we have seen this historical pattern before...

 

And third, as the chart above shows, both China's Containerized Freight Index and China's Rail Freight Index have collapsed to record lows amid this 'rebound' strongly suggesting that whatever this bounce is predicated on, it is perhaps merely indicative of a desperate unwind of the malinvestment boom and thus floods the world with a renewed deflationary impulse (just as we saw in US Import Prices).