Baltic Dry Freight

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.

Who could have seen this coming? Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a "clear signal" that 'China is back' baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up...

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?