Container Rates Rising 28% as Cargo to U.S. Rebounds from Decline
(Bloomberg – Isaac Arnsdorf and Michelle Wiese Bockmann)
Container rates on the world’s biggest international trade route are rallying after U.S. imports of manufactured goods rebounded from the first decline in two years.
U.S. container imports gained 1.6% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, compared with a drop of the same amount in the previous three months, data from Newark, New Jersey-based PIERS show. Volumes from northern Europe and the Mediterranean rose 12%. Rates to carry 40-foot boxes to the West Coast from China rose 29% since Dec. 16, according to Clarkson Plc (CKN), the world’s largest shipbroker.
Shipping lines will make money again this year after “deep losses” at the end of 2011, said Jon Windham, an analyst at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong. Investors should buy shares of A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S and Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., according to Morgan Stanley, which expects charter rates to more than double this year. U.S. cargo volumes will rise as much as 3.5% to a five-year high in 2012, UBM Global Trade predicts. Read more here.
Date: February 16, 2012
