What is Baltic saying about global slowdown?

mystic_trev

Unusual for Peston to take so long to play catch up? Some of us have been taking note of this for quite a while!

Now those of you who have lived with me through the amazing ups and (mainly) downs of the global economy in the past decade may recall one of my proudest journalistic minutes: an appearance on the News at Ten in the autumn of 2008 when I sententiously declared that the then collapse in the Baltic was the canary in the coal mine, that it showed the banking crisis was turning into a global recession.

That was, of course, what was happening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31428422

Crashy_Time

And it looks like we are there again.......Quick, slash interest rates.....Oh wait a minute.... :eek:

michaels

As Peston almost point out it is supply and demand, and there has been a big supply change with all the new super large (or whatever they call them) new ships coming on stream. Also with low energy prices there is a shift in manufacturing closer to demand - ie The US, is making more of the stuff it consumes so this will lead to a fall in demand for shipping without this necessarily implying a fall in global output.

purch

It's Baltic is young persons slang for it's cold in old money..................apparently

Generali

Looks like a very noisy index, e.g.:



E.g. in 2011-2 it managed to more than double and more than halve in a 12 month period.

It sounds to me like something Important People claim is Important because they have things like Bloomberg terminals and can access Important Data that we (well actually you) mortals can't. The reality, I suspect, is that it's a hugely noisy index that was pushed up and is now reverting to mean.

pricedout_1

There was an article about this in moneyweek... apparently there was a glut of ships built before the financial crisis that distorted the BDI...and explained the recent 60% drop according to some other source...although the MW journalist wasn't necessarily convinced by that argument saying this 60% drop could still mark that start of some kind of downturn and shouldn't be ignored.

Jonbvn

pricedout_1 wrote: »

There was an article about this in moneyweek... apparently there was a glut of ships built before the financial crisis that distorted the BDI...and explained the recent 60% drop according to some other source...although the MW journalist wasn't necessarily convinced by that argument saying this 60% drop could still mark that start of some kind of downturn and shouldn't be ignored.

And as we all know Moneyweek is full of hypocrite journos who couldn't predict the date of their next birthday.;)

pricedout_1

Jonbvn wrote: »

And as we all know Moneyweek is full of hypocrite journos who couldn't predict the date of their next birthday.;)

Can you give me an example?