Crb News

Downturn in dry freight market started in 2008; more ships expected to hit the water next year. Shipping companies that transport commodities such as coal, iron ore and grain face a painful year ahead, with only the strongest expected to weather a deepening crisis caused by tepid demand and a surplus of vessels for hire. The predicament facing firms that ship commodities in large unpackaged amounts - known as dry bulk - is partly the result of slower coal and iron ore demand from leading global importer China in the second half of 2015. The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index - which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities - plunged to an all-time low this month.

Commodities hit 13-year lows before rebounding on Monday after Saudi Arabia's pledge to work toward crude price stability bolstered oil and France's first wheat exports to Indonesia in more than six years helped lift grains markets. Base metals settled near multi-year lows hit while gold traded close to a 6-1/2-year trough. Crude prices rose more than 1 percent after Saudi Arabia said it was ready to work with other oil producing and exporting countries, lending recovery hope to a market that has lost half of its value over the past year. Despite pledges in the past that they would try and steady prices, Saudi Arabia and other big OPEC producers have kept their oil output high to maintain market share. Monday's remarks came as oil prices barely held above 2-1/2-month lows.

A slump in dry bulk shipping is set to worsen as the meltdown in global commodities and too many ships free for hire rock the sector used by investors to gauge the health of world trade. Slower coal and iron ore demand from China - the world's biggest industrial importer - have battered the dry bulk sector, already in the midst of its worst ever downturns that is expected to extend well into next year. This week the Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index , which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities and seen by investors as a forward-looking indicator of global industrial activity, plunged to an all-time low. A slump in oil and other commodity prices, due to slowing Chinese demand, has widely been seen as one of the reasons for U.S.

Major world stock markets were poised for their biggest weekly advance since 2011 on Friday, as greater investor appetite for riskier assets propelled gains in equities and a surge in commodities and crude oil prices. Declines in the dollar, a bullish oil forecast and giant miner Glencore's pledge Friday to slash world zinc output by 4 percent have lifted beaten-down commodities, with Brent crude oil headed for its biggest weekly rise since March 2009. The U.S. dollar hit a three-week low against the euro as minutes from the Federal Reserve's September policy meeting showed the Fed in no rush to raise interest rates. The MSCI all-country world equity index climbed 0.6 percent, for its eighth daily gain. It was up 4.3 percent for the week, its biggest weekly advance since 2011.

Commodities jumped on Friday, headed for their largest weekly gain in more than three years as base metals roared higher after Glencore pledged to slash zinc output and gold hit three-week highs after dovish Federal Reserve minutes. Surging metals offset a choppy oil market. Brent, the global benchmark, slipped on Friday under pressure from bargain hunting at the end of a big weekly increase. Base metals were "explosive" after Glencore's surprise announcement it will cut zinc output by 500,000 tonnes a year, removing 4 percent of global capacity, INTL FCStone analyst Ed Meir said. The news unleashed a wave of short covering across the London Metal Exchange as investors unwound bearish bets on weaker prices and ballooning oversupply as economic growth slows in China…

U.S. retail and institutional investors pulled cash from broad commodity exchange-traded funds for a fifth straight quarter even as coffee, natural gas and hogs prices had their best run in years, data from Thomson Reuters Lipper showed on Wednesday. Lipper, which tracks nearly 270 U.S. exchange-traded commodity funds and products worth about $240 billion, noted a net outflow of nearly $2.7 billion in the first quarter of this year. The data contrasts with positive flows for broad commodity exchange-traded products tracked by BlackRock for the same quarter. With the Lipper data, the outflows were largely in two commodity ETFs run by Boston-based mutual fund manager Fidelity Investments. The outflow appears to be slowing from the $16 billion outflow in the fourth quarter of 2013.