Container Freight Futures Week in Review – 11 Mar

Tuesday saw the front month freight futures pick up a little, with the spot April contract settling 2.12% higher than on Monday, closely followed by the June and August contracts at 1.57% and 1.12%, respectively. This follows the 6.12% rise in the SCFIS index that was published yesterday after the market close, with the April contract now trading at a 5.77% premium to the index.

Freightos confirmed this slight pickup in prices with its FBX11Asia - North Europe index increasing by 3% to $3,064/FEU. On the FBX01 (Asia-US West Coast) and FBX03 (Asia-US East Coast) routes, however, prices continued to drop sharply, with the FBX01 index losing 25% to hit $2,659/FEU while the FBX03 index was down 16% to $3,754/FEU WoW.

Trading volume rose 7.51% to once again cross the 100k lot mark while overall open interest remained steady. However, we can see a notable 1362 lot (11.79%) drop in April contract positions, with many of these likely being rolled to the June contract, which saw 2027 new net positions being established over the course of the day.

The June contract settled at almost precisely the same level as the August contract, with only a 0.1 point difference between them, and at 2301.5 and 2301.4 points, respectively, the two summer contracts remain noticeably higher than both the nearby April contract and the longer-dated contracts for the end of the year. This level roughly translates to a rate of USD 3600/FEU on the Shanghai to North Europe route in summer - an 80%+ premium over the lowest current spot market quotations of just USD 2000/FEU.

A look at the June contract shows that after a steep post-CNY rise, the market has stabilised and is now on a slow but relatively steady downward trend once again. The same trend is visible across almost all contracts as volatility has at least somewhat declined in recent days.

Given the uncertainty we're seeing in other markets, this may appear surprising at first, but given that shipping and international trade are in the eye of the policy storm that is unfolding on Truth Social, the fact that anything that's policy now may very well be history by the end of the day means that seemingly large events fail to have an impact as traders wait to see which policies ultimately stick.

Zooming in a bit more, we can see large price movements once the market opens in the morning, followed by a recovery for the rest of the day, with no strong trends emerging besides a general feeling that rates are headed lower.

And lastly, I'm excited to announce our upcoming seminar Navigating the Volatility of Container Freight Rates. The seminar is hosted in collaboration with the Shanghai International Energy Exchange and Linerlytica. Tan Hua Joo will do a deep dive into the near-term trends shaping the container freight market and where freight rates are headed, followed by Johnson Leung's panel on how carriers, forwarders and shippers can best manage their freight rate risk.

???Date:?24 March 2025

???Time:?15:00 - Seminar | 16:30 - Cocktail Reception

???Location:?Room 331, Level 3, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, 1 Raffles Blvd, Singapore

You can sign up at https://jsj.top/f/qvFZFR and I look forward to seeing you there!

Best regards,

Vincenz