Tumbling freight rates for clean tankers in the Atlantic have dropped steeply this week, and brokers pointed to the almost total closure of most transatlantic arbitrages as the reason. "The Continent transatlantic market has collapsed with the close of the arb'," said one New York tanker broker. London's Baltic Exchange closed on Tuesday with its assessment of the Rotterdam to New York trade down by nearly nine points on the preceding day to $0.26. Tankers for gasoline cargoes of 30,000 tons were being fixed at over $0.36 at the start of January. Traders said on Tuesday that the arbitrage would still be open for some types of gasoline if freight rates were to fall slightly.