Coal news and updates

The Chinese Stock Market and the Chinese Economy continue to substantially affect trading

The last week of the summer season saw the BDI dipping further on the back of another significant drop in rates for Capes, which brought the market back to mid-July levels and denied owners a much needed shot of optimism.

According to Greece based ship broker Intermodal, the developments surrounding the Chinese stock market and the Chinese economy continue to substantially affect trading, with the big bulkers being the main recipient of the dip in sentiment over the past weeks, while a significant part of the market believes that the extend of the drop is a bit exaggerated as frail sentiment is currently moving the market to a greater extend than pure fundamentals do. Greatly underperforming the rest of the market for a third week in a row, rates for Capes noted another substantial leg down, with period ideas also taking a significant hit.

The broker further noted that, the Atlantic Capesize market was very quiet, especially towards the end of the week with market talk partly attributing the lack of activity to the UK Bank holiday, while at the same time rates in the Pacific declined due to lack of fresh business, signs of which reappeared just before the weekend.

Commenting on Panamax, the broker said, the Atlantic Panamax market moved sideways last week, while in the East healthy levels of activity throughout the week led to overall stable rates and satisfactory period enquiry that shielded sentiment from collapsing on the back of a substantially softer Capesize market.

The geared sizes on the other hand remained for yet another week the best performers across the board, with fresh orders from the USG and East Med regions bringing more optimism to market participants as well as additional short/ medium period interest.

source: http://coalspot.com