The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a number issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. Not restricted to Baltic Sea countries, the index tracks worldwide international shipping prices of various dry bulk cargoes.
The index provides “an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 26 shipping routes measured on a timecharter and voyage basis, the index covers Handymax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain.”
Baltic Dry Index Continues Leading The Stock Market
I hinted towards this early in the year when it looked like it had put in a significant bottom and I wondered if the Baltic Dry Index would lead the stock market higher. Of course, we now know it certainly did.
The index measuring international shipping rates around the world bottomed in early December 2008 three months ahead of the stock market (green arrows):
In fact, if you compare the S&P 500 index for the past few years with the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), it would seem that shipping rates have lead the equities from 1 to 3 months in both rallies and tops (take a look at the marked points on the chart above).
Of course, the relationship is fuzzy and not a one to one, up and down, direct correlation. But in all its fuzziness, you can still make it out rather clearly. You can even see that about a month before the stock market went into a waterfall decline last year, the BDI broke down below its low and started on its head first dive.
So what is it saying now?
The BDI topped out in early June 2009 at 4291 and has since been in a downtrend. In keeping with the same approximate time lag, we would expect the stock market to top out in late August or early September. Which is right about now. We’ve been underwater since the S&P 500 index hit 1031 on August 27th, 2009. Now, I’m not suggesting that you trade just on this type of thing but it does provide an interesting context. Especially when you consider everything else which is telling longs to be cautious.
Lateset NEWS About Baltic Dry Index
The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of commodity-shipping costs, fell to the lowest level in more than four months on a surplus of ships.
The index declined 19 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,076 today, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. That’s the lowest since Aug. 6. Declines were led by rates to hire capsesize ships, the biggest in the gauge. They fell 2.1 percent to $24,852 a day.
“The dry bulk market is showing no signs of improvement,” Shalini Shekhawat, a Gurgaon, India-based analyst at Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd., wrote in a report. “The remainder of the year will be no better, with iron ore and grain trade being insufficient to absorb the over-supply of tonnage in the market.”
Shipping rates have fallen 31 percent this year as new vessels entered the fleet. Capesizes will expand 24 percent in 2010, driving overall dry-bulk fleet growth of 17 percent, Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker, estimates. Demand will grow 10 percent over the same time, Clarkson said. Capesizes mostly carry iron ore, used to make steel.
Daily rates for smaller panamax vessels that compete with capesizes for cargoes fell 1.5 percent to $18,595 and supramaxes rose 0.4 percent to $17,532. Handysize rates added 0.5 percent to $12,215.
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