Baltic Index Nears One-Month Nadir

The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index fell for a tenth straight session on Monday to its lowest in nearly a month as a combination of better ship supply and easing demand hurt vessel rates.

The Baltic index, which tracks rates for ships ferrying dry bulk commodities, fell 14 points, or 0.8%, to 1,774 points, lowest since July 9. The index has, still, nearly tripled since February, mainly driven by strong demand for vessels that ship iron ore from Brazil into China over the past few months. Activity, however, eased in the past couple of weeks, weighing on vessel rates, analysts said.

The capesize index fell 12 points, or 0.3%, to 3,480 points. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 170,000 tonne-180,000 tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, fell $130 to $25,619.

The panamax index fell 26 points, or 1.5%, to 1,753 points. The index was down for a ninth straight session. The index fell 15.6% last week, its worst week since week-ending Feb. 1. Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 tonnes to 70,000 tonnes, decreased $209 to $14,025.

The supramax index fell 9 points to 959 points.

Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman