Shipping

Snooze

reduceditem wrote: »

Conclusive proof that the governments new scrappage sheme for the car industry is working already! :rotfl:


Seriously, though. I'm not sure that the shipping of scrap metal anywhere can be taken as a positive indicator regarding the global recession.

It can't. We've only been exporting scrap metal and paper for donkeys years - this is not anything new.

R

pickles110564

FungusFighter wrote: »

Won't last mate:D

Winter of discontent on the waay:D:D

In for another overtime shift tonight, will bank them while I can.:beer:

Snooze

pickles110564 wrote: »

In for another overtime shift tonight, will bank them while I can.:beer:

It has been a bit breezy lately so I guess it makes sense...

R

pickles110564

Snooze wrote: »

It has been a bit breezy lately so I guess it makes sense...

R

:rotfl: Like your thinking.

mbga9pgf

Well, that didnt last long, did it?

Done to sound of crashing aircraft:

Neeeeeeoooooooowwwwwwwwwwww

Bang!

http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/the-shipping-index-shows-most-stocks-are-heading-down-14902.aspx

This is exactly what we've been seeing recently. Last year, as the global recession took hold, the index fell some 90% as trade dried up almost overnight. But in 2009, with the Chinese buying huge quantities of industrial commodities and metals prices rising fast – the S&P GCSI global commodity index is up 37% this year – the BDI has taken off. From mid-April until the middle of last week, it soared 180%.
After taking off earlier this year, it has now run aground

That's got the economic optimists cheering from the top of the mast that global trade, and thus economic growth, was staging a major comeback. Supposedly the end of the recession was in sight. But on the 3 June, the BDI ran aground. It has since lost 20% in a week.
So what's gone wrong?
All that buying from China may have got the shipbrokers excited, but the Chinese were being very smart. They were cashing in on massive drops in the prices of many commodities over the previous year or so, and have stockpiled the stuff. For example, they picked up record amounts of iron ore – which had halved in price - between February and April, loading up 50m tonnes in the latter month alone.
They've also snapped up loads of aluminium, copper, nickel, tin, zinc… and lashings of crude oil too. And there's no doubt these stockpiles will prove very handy one day.
But not yet. Indeed right now, the Chinese have binge bought so much, they've almost bitten off more than they can chew. They're running out of room to store their swag. "At least 90 large freighters full of iron ore are idling off Chinese ports, where they face waits of up to two weeks to unload because port storage operations are overflowing", says Keith Bradshaw in the New York Times. Here's the key bit. "Yet actual steel production from that iron ore is recovering much more slowly in China, and Chinese steel exports remain weak".
In a nutshell, that economic recovery the bulls think they can see just isn't happening at the moment. And as the Chinese stop stockpiling, commodity prices will drop again and demand for ships will sink. That's what the BDI is now telling us.

StevieJ

Moneyweek eh :eek:

Near miss, phew, pull on that joystick

Yesterday, the Baltic Dry Index, a measure of commodity cargo costs, rose for the first time in six days in London. The gauge is more than four times higher than the level at the beginning of this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aERot2ZAaIzI

mewbie_2

I've thanked you both to be on the safe side, but I haven't a clue what is going on. If Pickles thinks its a good time to buy a Yugo then that's good enough for me.

pickles110564

mewbie wrote: »

I've thanked you both to be on the safe side, but I haven't a clue what is going on. If Pickles thinks its a good time to buy a Yugo then that's good enough for me.

Mewbie, I posted a few weeks back saying that companies were now needing to stock up their warehouses but no one knew what would happen when they were full again.
Also I sent Gen a pm that we were shipping out loads and loads of scrap metal to china way.
I also posted a warning in fdintrouble thread re latest warning that we are not out of the woods yet.

tomterm8

If I were running a hedge fund, It's oil that I'd be most interested in. Oil is literally lying around on ships in the middle of the ocean in huge quantities, they're opening up a large new oil field in saudi, and the oil producers are really suffering... and yet the price is going up...

When a proportion of that oil comes on shore... well, it's going to panic all the other people who have oil lying around as an investment. Oil seems to be moving into backwadation again. That's significant to me, because it would imply its time to bring the oil onshore.

So, it feels like oil prices are going to plummet.

It seems to me like this scenario is happening to commodities accross the board... people are buying because they are at historically low prices, but... well, my impression is the reason that they are at such low prices is that manufacturing in general is !!!!ed. And manufacturing is not going to become more productive as a result of speculation based input inflation.

harryhound

mewbie wrote: »

I'm guessing not a lot of iron ore and gold gets shipped to China via Felixstowe. Th only volume increasing is Pickles hysterical green shoots.

How many 10,000 teu ships would it take to shift all the gold ever mined in world?

tomterm8 wrote: »

It seems to me like this scenario is happening to commodities accross the board... people are buying because they are at historically low prices, but... well, my impression is the reason that they are at such low prices is that manufacturing in general is !!!!ed. And manufacturing is not going to become more productive as a result of speculation based input inflation.

Could this be where a lot of that "Quantitative Easing" printing press money has gone.
==================================================================================
All that buying from China may have got the shipbrokers excited, but the Chinese were being very smart. They were cashing in on massive drops in the prices of many commodities over the previous year or so, and have stockpiled the stuff. For example, they picked up record amounts of iron ore – which had halved in price - between February and April, loading up 50m tonnes in the latter month alone.

What would you do if you had more dollars than you could possibly use? (Try to spend the things while they still had some value?)

[When the government threatened to put VAT on coal, I went and bought 3 year's supply. I only wish I had bought some "useless" gold coins when Gordon Brown was selling our reserves and the gold bubble was not under way.]