Our reporter Shi Lu
In the traditional peak season, the container shipping industry (hereinafter referred to as the "container shipping industry") felt the chill ahead of time.
"The price of containers from Guangzhou to the western United States has fallen below $3,000/FEU, and the price in Ningbo remains above $3,000/FEU, which is in line with the high price of $20,000/FEU called by freight forwarders in 2021 ( Compared with the actual transaction, the decline has been as high as 85%." An insider of Sinotrans Group told the "Securities Daily" reporter.
Before that, the price of containers was once a day, known as the "crazy box".
Originally, September was the traditional peak season for the container shipping industry, but in terms of spot freight rates and freight forwarding business, this traditional peak season this year seems a bit deserted.
Today, the spot freight rate has dropped by more than 80%. Does it mean that the rising cycle of the container shipping industry has completely ended and the industry's prosperity has begun to decline?
Spot freight rates fell across the board
Affected by global inflation and geopolitical factors, the global container transportation demand continued to weaken, and the container freight rates of various trunk lines fell almost across the board.
According to data released by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on September 9, the SCFI index fell by 285.5 points to 2562.12 points last week, a drop of as much as 10.03%, which further expanded from the 9.7% drop in the previous week and fell back to the low point since late December 2020. .
Compared with the beginning of the year, the SCFI index is close to "halving" and has fallen by 43.9%.
The U.S. west route was once a popular route last year, but now, the container freight rate on the Shanghai-U.S. west route is only US$3,484/FEU, a weekly drop of 13.21% and a year-on-year drop of 44.9%. 57%.
The container freight rate of the eastern route of the United States has relatively strong support, and the freight rate fell to US$7,767/FEU, a weekly decline of 6.62%, and a cumulative decline of more than 35% compared with the historical high.
Container freight rates on European routes, which have always been stable, also began to fall.
According to SCFI data, the container freight rate from Shanghai to Europe was US$3,877/TEU, down 8.8% month-on-month, down 48.2% year-on-year, and down more than 50% compared to the historical high.
Long-term association prices rise steadily
As for the reasons for the sharp drop in container spot freight rates, an insider in the shipping industry told the Securities Daily reporter: "On the one hand, the growth rate of exports on the demand side has slowed down, and the global container cargo transportation volume has decreased; on the other hand, most ports in the world have The congestion situation has eased, and the supply and demand pattern of container ships has gradually turned loose. In 2023, new ship orders will usher in a peak delivery period, and the container shipping industry will have sufficient supply. The previous mismatch between supply and demand in the container shipping industry will be fundamentally resolved, which will continue to put pressure on freight rates. ."
Guotai Junan Securities stated in a research report that the global cargo volume in July 2022 will increase by 5% compared with the same period in 2019.
Among them, the cargo volume of the Asia-North America route was still at a high level in June, while the growth in the peak season was weak and the load factor decreased.
The inland and port congestion in the United States has been significantly eased, and the traditional peak season of booking and settlement prices of container shipping companies has begun to decline significantly.
Huatai Securities said in a research report that the third quarter is the traditional peak season for the container shipping industry, and goods are usually exported in September to meet the shelves and sales of goods on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
However, since September this year, the international container freight rate has accelerated to decline.
Among them, in the second week of September, the freight rates of the western US route/Europe route both fell month-on-month, highlighting the lack of market cargo volume.
In terms of space supply, it is expected that the supply of space on European and American routes will exceed the demand in September.
The suspension capacity of the European line has risen to 24% to cope with the impact of insufficient cargo volume.
"High energy prices, rising inflation, decelerating physical consumption in Europe and the United States, and passive inventory accumulation all indicate that there is still a risk of further decline in container shipping demand in the fourth quarter of this year." Huatai Securities analyst Shen Xiaofeng said in a research report.
Jia Yizhen, a registered international investment analyst, believes that even if the futures freight rate keeps falling, the impact on the shipping company will not be large. Rising, so the corresponding listed company performance will not be too bad.
The stock price is an expectation of future freight rates, and I think the current market reaction is a bit overdone.
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"Taking COSCO SHIPPING Holdings as an example, the proportion of long-term contracts in its container shipping business is very high, perhaps more than 60%. Moreover, the long-term contract price of the US line has doubled year-on-year, and the one-year contract price of the European line has increased by 200% to 400% year-on-year. Jia Yizhen added that with the long-term price underpinning, the performance of the relevant listed companies in the third quarter of this year may be basically the same as the second quarter, and the annual performance can basically be maintained at a relatively high level.