As already previously discussed, the Baltic Dry Index soars – rather uninterrupted since 11 February. On Friday, 9 April it reached 539 points – an increase of more than 85% in less than two months. However, the Chinese Containerized Freight Index further crashed to 640.27 on Friday thus widening the „spread“ between the two indices to a new record.
Going back to a recent post (I wanted to write „older“, but it has also only been two months since then!) the then discussed correlation if not causality of the two indices is even less true today than it it was at the time of the writing.
However, as already pointed out by Zerohedge at that time and reiterated again on Wednesday this week by Economic Calendar, ship-scrapping activities are soaring in unison with the BDIY. Nothing comparable is to be heard from the Container-Shipping-end.
Hence, though it is not easy to make a sense out of these moves for the state of the world economy, one thing should be very clear: If the world-trade ever REALLY rebounds, the BDIY will skyrocket due to the lack of ships. And this will be the point, when the whole cycle will re-start…