When this indicator of global trade rises, everything is rosy and reams of asset-gatherers and talking-heads wil quote it as indicative of how great the world is. When it drops – silence. There’s always an excuse – over- or under-capacity, too many ships, too few ships, etc. However, the last 2 weeks have seen a 35% collapse in the cost to ship bulk. There is a relative seasonal pattern over the holiday period – with shipping costs rising into the holiday and falling after but… this is the biggest drop from a Christmas Eve since at least 1984, 30 years! Seems like the inventory stacking of Q4 had absolutely no follow-through whatsoever…
All thepost-Thanksgiving exuberance has been eviscerated from the Baltic Dry Index…
and some context – this is the worst post-holiday start to the year since at least 1984!!
Cramer?
Charts: Bloomberg
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/tpGoViVMgKs/story01.htm Tyler Durden