Is it time to heed the Baltic Cry?

Thursday, 14 February 2019

I gave up on the Baltic Dry many years ago when a shipping glut dislocated it from wider global economic activity. Is it time to revisit it? If so, it is not painting a pretty picture:

There are a few reasons to be wary of the crash:

China’s recent rolling import coal bans are piling up shipping outside its ports;
the Vale accident has hurt Brazilian shipments, but
it is also signalling a more fundamental slowdown in Chinese demand for bulk commodities.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.