Hong Kong: In its latest Asian shipping forecast Macquarie is very downbeat. Analyst Janet Lewis reckons box rates gave peaked and excess capacity will start to bite in the next 12 months, “with capacity discipline getting harder to enforce next year.” For dry bulk, meanwhile, Lewis does not expect any meaningful recovery for the sector until the second half of 2014.
“Although carriers have done a tremendous job in controlling capacity YTD,” Lewis wrote on the container trades, “we believe cracks have started to appear with Evergreen and Hanjin launching new services in the Asia-Europe trade lane despite Europe import volume falling by 7% in June.”
The only container stock pick from Macquarie is OOCL and the only bulk pick is Pacific Basin, both from Hong Kong. [03/09/12]
