Europe Contracts (EC) saw an increase of 3-10% during the morning session, with 47,174 contracts traded. EC2502 emerged as the main contract by volume, rising by 10% today following MSC's announcement to raise the FE-NEUR freight rate for the second half of November shipments to $5,500 per FEU. ONE also increased its quotations for the second half of November to $5,000 per FEU, up from $4,600 per FEU quoted yesterday. The CMA CGM CHAMPS ELYSEES departed yesterday (October 31) at 101% utilizatio
The EC2412 dropped to a low of 2,900 at the open yesterday (29 October) and then continued to recover as traders digested the conflicting freight rate quotations from different liners. Average utilization continued to improve as shippers rushed to send out their shipments ahead of the general rate increase scheduled for November 1, this Friday. On October 28, four ships departed Singapore for Northern Europe with over 96% utilization. Over the past two days, online quotations from the liners
Shanghai-North Europe freight futures slipped marginally by 1-2% at the start of the week with doubts emerging over the sustainability of the 1 November rate hike. The SCFIS index finally ended its 13-week losing streak with settled rates to North Europe holding up by 0.1% on 28 October just ahead of the planned 1 November rate increase while the SCFI pre-empted the increase on Friday with a 14% week-over-week rebound. Although the SCFIS is set to rise next week on the back of the November hike
EC2412 is up 3.5% at intermission in the morning session, reaching 3262 and edging closer to yesterday's high of 3320, which also marks the peak of the recent rebound since mid-September. TS Lines, primarily involved in intra-Asia trade, is set to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on November 1. Three additional ships departed between October 24 and 23, maintaining utilization above the trend line. Though, jury is out on whether the pick up in utilization is due to the shippers advancin
From Weekly Market Pulse published on 22 October: Shanghai-North Europe freight futures continued to rally on 21 October with long-dated EC contracts from December 2024 through August 2025 rising by 7-15% on November rate hike expectations. Carriers have raised their online freight quotations in anticipation of the 1 November 2024 rate hike with CMA CGM advancing the date for the higher spot rates from November 1 to October 25 as it seeks to take advantage of the strong pre-GRI bookings. The b
Market is going see-saw debating whether the higher freight rates post 1 November will be sustainable. Yesterday, the main contract i.e. EC2412 was down 9% to its lowest, still reacting to HMM's undercutting, before recovering half of the loss in the last 30 minutes. Today, the main contract continued to rebound to get back to the level on par with Monday close. Utilization has been getting better since Golden Week holidays but the doubt among traders is whether such improved loading is just b
Just when the EC market wanted to take a pause today, HMM's quotation released this afternoon (22 October) with $4,106 per 40'dc Shanghai-Rotterdam for shipments departing on 5-6 November dropped the EC market. Every contracts closed in red where EC2504 dropped 9.4% for the day. Online quotations otherwise came out mostly bullish with CMA CGM and ONE released their quotations for the second half of November departures at $5,060 per 40'dc and $4,704 per 40'dc respectively. The new utilizatio
EC contracts edging up to the recent high on average volume. CMA CGM raised its online quotations to $4,460/FEU for vessels departing 25th and 31st Oct while liners mostly keep their quotations unchanged. Utilization for vessels departed between 17th and 20th October continued to show improvement from the early October drop. FE-N.EUR Head Haul
EC opened 1-2% lower, with the main contract down 3.2% at the intermission of the morning session, on slightly better volume than the same period yesterday, when the main contract fell for the first time in two weeks. The liners' online quotations have not changed much, although OOCL has revised up its rates for several departure dates in October, reversing its move from yesterday. The lack of upward revisions for freight rates on departure dates before November 1 suggests that demand is still
EC contracts rose again, with strength shifting to the February-April 2025 contracts on relatively lower volume, although open interest continues to increase. The overnight changes in the liners' quotations are modestly bearish; for example, OOCL has reduced its October rates by 3-5%. We would have expected freight rates to strengthen in anticipation of a successful General Rate Increase. Moreover, liners are still implementing some blank sailings for November, which does not convey any confide