Comment / The absurdly simple freight rate shipping cycle – except when it's not

ID 185309792 © Yurii Kibalnik | Dreamstime.com

The economics of the container shipping industry are absurdly simple – just supply vs demand.

What is so fiendishly difficult is judging how much of either factor there is. And not just in pure numbers, but in the way that external factors such as strikes and storms; congestion and conflict can hugely influence not only levels of supply and demand, but the perception of those levels.

This gives the sector the weird potential of simultaneously being utterly predictable and wildly irrational, as ...