Stocks that Float: TANKERS & DRY BULK SHIPPERS (SHIPPERS)

[MWM]

SSW made a nice move while i was gone...

[investorwisdom]

NNA and NNA+

[investorwisdom]

NEWL SHIP OCNF all looking good.

[investorwisdom]

Very interesting developments as of late.....

[investorwisdom]

SHIP looks good!

[MWM]

BDI sneaking up

[MWM]

HRZ recent dip



Horizon posts 4Q gain, 2009 lossJacksonville Business Journal - by Mark Szakonyi Staff Writer

Horizon posts 4Q gain, 2009 loss

A Charlotte-based shipping company that provides cargo service from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico reported a fourth-quarter gain and a 2009 loss.

Horizon Lines Inc. (NYSE: HRZ) reported fourth-quarter net income of $1.3 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, up from a net loss of $20.3 million, or 67 cents per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008.

Quarterly revenue dropped to $299.7 million from $314.7 million.

Horizon’s board cut its quarterly dividend to 5 cents per share from 11 cents, which will save $7.3 million annually.

Fourth-quarter 2009 net income was $3.7 million, or 12 cents per diluted share, after excluding charges for antitrust-related legal expenses and for a voluntary separation program for union employees and tax adjustments. Adjusted net income for the 2008 fourth quarter was $1.2 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, which excluded legal fees and impairment and restructuring charges totaling $32.4 million pre-tax, or 71 cents per share after tax adjustments.

For the fiscal year ended Dec. 20, 2009, operating revenue was $1.16 billion, an 11 percent drop from $1.3 billion in 2008. Horizon had a 2009 net loss of $31.3 million, or $1.03 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $2.6 million, or 9 cents per diluted share, for fiscal 2008.

Horizon operates container ships and port terminals linking the continental United States with Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia, Puerto Rico and Alaska.

“Our company performed well in the fourth quarter, considering the continued challenging economic environment,” said Chuck Raymond, chairman, president and CEO. Lower cargo volumes hurt revenue, but the rate of decline slowed for the second consecutive quarter.

The lower dividend “retains an attractive and appropriate payout to our stockholders,” he said, “while at the same time giving management additional flexibility to augment our ongoing focus on debt reduction.”

[MWM]

GASS recent dip...



StealthGas Inc. Announces the Sale of the Gas Fortune, the Gas Natalie and the Gas Eternity, the Cancellation of the Purchase and Bareboat Charter of the Stealth Argentina, Plus New Charter Arrangements for the Gas Cathar, the Gas Defiance and the Gas Shanghai


Press Release Source: StealthGas Inc. On Tuesday January 26, 2010, 9:00 am EST

ATHENS, Greece, Jan. 26, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- StealthGas Inc. (Nasdaq:GASS - News) (the "Company"), a ship-owning company serving primarily the liquified petroleum gas (LPG) sector of the international shipping industry announced today that on December 9, 2009 it completed the sale of the Gas Fortune, a 1995 built 3,500 LPG carrier to an unaffiliated entity based in the Far East. On January 15, 2010 the Company completed the sale of the Gas Natalie a 1997 built 3,213 cbm LPG carrier to an unaffiliated entity based in the Far East. On December 31, 2009 the Company signed a Memorandum of Agreement to sell the Gas Eternity a 1998 built 3.500 cbm LPG carrier to an unaffiliated entity based in the Far East. Delivery of this vessel to it's new owner is expected at the end of April 2010 upon the expiry of her existing bareboat charter.



The aggregate sale price for these three vessels is approximately $20.0 million and will result in a net inflow of cash to the Company of approximately $14.3 million after the repayment of debt associated with the Gas Eternity and commission expenses.



As a result of these sales either concluded or agreed during the fourth quarter of 2009 the Company will incur a non-cash loss from sales/impairment of $9.8 million, this will be reflected in the Company's fourth quarter results to be announced in February 2010.



The Company also announced following protracted negotiations with the seller of the Stealth Argentina in regard to various technical deficiencies identified in the design of the vessel that it has entered into an agreement to cancel both the purchase of the vessel and the three year bareboat charter that was to commence upon the vessel's delivery. In consideration of the agreement the Company will pay the sum of $10,750,000 to the seller on top of the already paid deposit.



The Company also announced the following new charter arrangements:



Commencing from October 29, 2009 the Gas Cathar began a time charter for between 20 to 50 days to an International Gas Trader. This was subsequently extended for thee months from the 16th December 2009.



Commencing from 11th January 2010 the Gas Defiance extended her existing time charter for a further 12 months to a far eastern gas company.



Commencing from the beginning of January 2010 the Gas Shanghai began a new one month time charter to a national oil and gas company.



The average time charter equivalent rate for the above three charters is $322,333 per calendar month or $10,635 per day.



CEO Harry Vafias commented:



"The sale of the three above mentioned ships is I believe a prudent measure as it bolsters the liquidity resources of the Company as we move into what I believe will be a further challenging year in 2010 plus it reduces our level of debt. It is obviously disappointing to incur losses on these sales, but they reduce our exposure to the spot market in which two of the vessels were already trading and the Gas Eternity would probably have entered into in May. Moreover these are three of our smallest and oldest pressurized gas ships and we want to maintain a low average age especially after the deliveries of the 5 new buildings that will join the fleet in 2011 and 2012. We will also reduce our dry docking expenditure in 2010 through the sale of the Gas Fortune.



"The agreement reached with the sellers of the Stealth Argentina is again I believe a prudent move on the part of the Company's management. I fully acknowledge that the taking of a loss is disappointing but this must be considered in the light that after reviewing the design of the vessel and taking third party advice we developed serious reservations regarding the operational design of the vessel. We will also now avoid adding some $43 million of debt to our balance sheet against a ship with a current market value far lower than this, and due to the change of bareboat charterer, because of adverse market factors, a bareboat charter rate that was just break even in its initial years. This decision was not taken lightly, but it underlines our desire to maintain our conservative financial structure by removing a significant amount of new debt we were projecting to incur, it will reduce future interest expense and it removes a potentially non accretive asset, with possible impairment issues going forward, from our fleet.



"Finally we are pleased to announce further period charters which are similar in value to those we announced in November which further underline the relative steadiness of our core business in its mainstream time charter sector, and quite a significant improvement in current market conditions in our core LPG sector in the last few weeks."

[Milner]

Those tankers are waiting to offload on the European Union and they contain enough oil for the EU for about 2 weeks use.
The article is mis leading...

Tankers should do well in the upcoming year..

[investorwisdom]

Tankers are in the house of pain, I sold my TNK to offset gains on year end taxes, no hope on the Horizon IMO...

[MWM]

Tanker Glut Signals 25% Drop on 26-Mile Line of Ships (Update3)
Share Business Exchange
By Alaric Nightingale and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A 26-mile-long line of idled oil tankers, enough to blockade the English Channel, may signal a 25 percent slump in freight rates next year.

The ships will unload 26 percent of the crude and oil products they are storing in six months, adding to vessel supply and pushing rates for supertankers down to an average of $30,000 a day next year, compared with $40,212 now, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 15 analysts, traders and shipbrokers. That’s below what Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the ships, says it needs to break even.

Traders booked a record number of ships for storage this year, seeking to profit from longer-dated energy futures trading at a premium to contracts for immediate delivery, according to SSY Consultancy & Research Ltd., a unit of the world’s second- largest shipbroker. Ships taken out of that trade would return to compete for cargoes just as deliveries from shipyards’ largest-ever order book swell the global fleet.

“The tanker market has been defying gravity,” said Martin Stopford, a London-based director at Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. Stopford has covered shipping since 1971.

More than half of the ships are in European waters, with the rest spread out across Asia, the U.S. and West Africa. Lined up end to end, they would stretch for about 26 miles.

Storing Crude

Traders are storing enough crude at sea to supply the 27- nation European Union for more than three days. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company; London-based BP Plc; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Morgan Stanley were among those that sought vessels for storage.

By the end of November, 168 tankers were storing crude or refined products, according to data from Simpson, Spence & Young Ltd., the world’s second-largest shipbroker. Their combined carrying capacity of 23.8 million deadweight tons is equal to 5.9 percent of the tanker fleet. That exceeds the previous record, set in 1981, when Japanese refiners used tankers with a combined 19.5 million deadweight tons.

The storage helped prop up tanker rates this year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, accounting for 40 percent of global oil supply, made the deepest-ever output cuts in response to the worst global recession since World War II.

The storage trade is profitable so long as the spread between energy contracts exceeds ship rental, insurance and financing costs. A year ago, the spread between the first and sixth Brent crude-oil contracts traded on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange was 23 percent. Now, it’s 4 percent.

Supertanker Fleet

Daily returns from leasing supertankers on the industry’s benchmark route from Saudi Arabia to Japan advanced to $40,212 on Dec. 24, compared with $1,246 on Sept. 11, data from the London-based Baltic Exchange show.

“If tanker rates go up, everybody will get rid of ships,” said Andreas Vergottis, Hong Kong-based research director at Tufton Oceanic Ltd., which manages the world’s largest shipping hedge fund. “It’s going to be a market that’s worse than 2009.”

Vergottis expects the global tanker fleet to expand about 12 percent next year, of which 5 percentage points will come from ships returning from storage. That compares with the Paris- based International Energy Agency’s forecast for a 1.6 percent gain in global oil demand.

Crude-oil storage will slump to 40 million barrels in six months and 19 million barrels in a year, from about 50 million barrels now, according to the Bloomberg News survey. Oil-product storage will shrink to 69 million barrels in six months and 29 million in a year, from 98 million now, the survey showed.

‘A Lot Longer’

Brent crude will average $75 a barrel next year, about 1.7 percent less than the closing price of $76.31 on Dec. 24, according to the median of 37 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gasoil will average $679 a metric ton next year, compared with $635 now, forecasts compiled by Bloomberg show.

Storage “already lasted a lot longer than most people anticipated,” said Jonathan Chappell, an analyst at JPMorgan in New York with “underweight” recommendations on Frontline and Overseas Shipholding Group, the largest U.S.-based oil-tanker owner.

Ships unloading their cargoes will rejoin a fleet set to expand 3.5 percent next year, according to London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. The order book for tankers stands at 121 million deadweight tons, or 32 percent of the existing fleet, it estimates. Deadweight tons are a measure of a ship’s capacity for carrying cargo, fuel and supplies.

Oil-Tanker Owner

Frontline dropped 17 percent in Oslo trading this year while Overseas Shipholding gained 6.3 percent in New York. The MSCI World Index of equities in 23 developed nations advanced 28 percent, heading for its best year since 2003.

Five out of 27 analysts covering Frontline recommend buying the stock, while for New York-based Overseas Shipholding it’s three out of 17, recommendations compiled by Bloomberg show.

The 2010 average tanker rate of $30,000 in the Bloomberg survey would still be 30 percent higher than this year’s average of $23,130, according to data from the Baltic Exchange. In May, July, August and September, charter rates fell so low that ship owners were contributing toward fuel as well as paying the crew, insurance, repairs and other running costs.

Frontline, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, announced last month its first quarterly loss in seven years. Its supertankers need $32,900 a day to break even, the company said. Ship owners usually hire their vessels out in the spot market and on longer rentals at fixed prices.

Single-Hull Tankers

Unprofitable tanker rates may encourage owners to scrap more ships, according to Nikhil Jain, a Delhi-based editor for Drewry’s Tanker Forecaster report. A global ban on single-hulled tankers is scheduled to be phased in from next year, potentially further shrinking vessel supply. Single-hulled supertankers, deemed “more accident-prone” than double-hulled vessels by the European Union, account for about 17 percent of the total fleet, according to Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay data.

The elimination of single-hull tankers will lead to “negative fleet growth” and rising charter rates in 2010, said Jens Martin Jensen, chief executive officer of Frontline’s management unit. “I still believe in increased oil demand compared to today,” he said.

The Federal Reserve will likely keep interest rates low, curbing financing costs for those storing cargoes, said Morten Arntzen, chief executive officer of Overseas Shipholding.

Global Recession

“I don’t see this collapse as tankers come out of storage,” he said. Oil consumption will strengthen next year and the additional demand will require ships to travel further, buoying freight rates, Arntzen said.

Demand for ships may also improve after governments spent at least $12 trillion to lift their economies out of recession. U.S. gross domestic product will expand 2.6 percent next year, compared with a 2.5 percent contraction this year, according to the median estimate from 58 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The eurozone will advance 1.1 percent, rebounding from a 3.9 percent decline this year, the survey shows.

The recovery may not be smooth. The announcement on Nov. 25 that state-controlled Dubai World would seek to freeze or delay debt repayments stoked concern that a default would add to the $1.7 trillion of credit losses and asset writedowns posted by global financial companies since 2007.

“There are a lot of things to worry about on the economic front,” Clarkson’s Stopford said. “You don’t get over body shocks like that overnight. You get run over by an 8-wheeler truck and you don’t go back to work the next day.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Alaric Nightingale in London at [e-mail]; Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at [e-mail].

Last Updated: December 28, 2009 16:23 EST

[investorwisdom]

The Chinese demand for Dry Bulk is so great because they are dumping their dollars for commodities, and Dry-Bulkers with exposure to the Chinese market will gain from this long term trend, not only does China need if for Internal growth, but it is a excellent investment when the dollar remains weak. I expect Navios Holdings to do extremely well from continued Chinese demand. However a Dry-Bulker with more spot rate exposure may have a nice earnings surprise as well...

[Milner]

Capesize paper flies as fronthaul rate tops $100,000 per day

[investorwisdom]

Navios Maritime gets new vessel The Navios Aurora II
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5inj6GKDLHDA5MuMxyDbSlqcnfb_QD9CA40G01

[investorwisdom]

shippers charts!
http://stockcharts.com/scripts/php/candleglance.php?NM,GSL,EXM,TNK,NAT,SBLK,FREE,DAC,RAMS,|C|C20

[m177]

Trying to reload my DSX 17.50 calls for .05, let's do it again!

[investorwisdom]

GSL breakout imminent!

[swampboots]

GSL 1.18 could be breakout?

[m177]

yeah i had some drys calls too up a little on them but DSX made my day...cramer pumped NAT too, calls up over 1000% on that one!

[MWM]

Nice! i should have been plaing DSX instead of that terd DRYS!

[m177]

Wow the Cramer pump last nite gapped up DSX hard, had to dump my calls...bought at .05 dumped at .40!

[investorwisdom]

NM conference call 8:30 AM Sharp!
http://www.knobias.com/story.htm?eid=3.1.18dbfa0e0adb8323714f49ae913cd5ac744075b46423c2ad9dadd34402aa0795

[MWM]

While Deutsche Bank remains cautious on the sector, it believes near-term fundamentals suggest higher day rates in the fourth quarter. Vessel dislocation from seasonal coal and grain trades added to positives for the sector as well as strength in imports into China. Capesize rates are up 45% since November 1, but the firm notes that dry bulk shipping stocks are only up 23% due to disbelief of a sustainable recovery. Deutsche believes day rate increases could continue through the first quarter of 2010 or beyond.

[investorwisdom]

this going to be a great Life! weeeeeeeeeeeee ROFLMAO!

[MWM]

I agree! Especially if the BDI keeps flying!

[m177]

Think this is gonna be a great week to play calls on shippers...

[m177]

.20 ask on DSX $17.50 calls!

[investorwisdom]

BDI just hit new 52 wk High! wonderful news for all you shippers!

[investorwisdom]

may Navios live long and prosper!

[investorwisdom]

Were talking about the bottom of the cycle! are you crazy! this is a once in a decade event! Look how high and how fast the prices can go back up! Dry Bulk shipping is the best possible investment, my core position is NM and so happy that it is!

[MWM]

DSX very nice late day Move!

[Realperson]

Fair Wind From The East Lifts Bulk Shippers
Posted: Nov 12, 2009 14:16 PM by Eugene Bukoveczky

The Bottom Line
Momentum alone will probably push most dry shippers' shares back to their mid-summer levels. Progress beyond that point will depend on evidence that the industry is prepared to cancel those new ship orders that threaten to cause a multi-year supply glut.


http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2009/Fair-Wind-From-The-East-Lifts-Bulk-Shippers-DSX-DRYS-GNK-EGLE-PRGN1112.aspx?partner=YahooSA

[swampboots]

I originaly traded much higher when confirmed long term contracts.but div. stop and more financing made it eat crow.they just have to box out of the bad technicals, and then the pile on.

[investorwisdom]

I agree, BDI going vertical, how long can container rates lag? even so GSL has locked rates and contracts!

[MWM]

Only thing I have to say is that GSL is a container shipper, i have heard the Dryshippers are in a better position...

GL!

[MWM]

Big push into the shipper is bound to be coming...

[MWM]

FREE reports on monday

[swampboots]

Started GSL 1.09, because if shipping rates rise with conviction this sector will be overbought, as pattern of money has been chasing sectors after completing gains in other sectors.

[MWM]

Added more DRYS calls here, with the BDI up yet again, I think the public will start pouring back into the shippers...

It's like gold going up without gold miners following... Hello!

$4100 as of today...

[MWM]

Load the Boat on the Shippers!

[MWM]

gotcha!

[investorwisdom]

no your right, but now he owns 13.66% of outstanding, so he must have bought shares.

[MWM]

Guys on yahoo have been talking about Soro's for a long time it looks like...

[investorwisdom]

but it was just announced and filed yesterday...

[MWM]

You sure about that?

http://search.messages.yahoo.com/search?.mbintl=finance&q=soros&type=AeEjQEPVWsfUbHmeY29BmB1oJhzSZGUXv1S22CUgbEvBLwnGXX52g8ORqNh3cn_7&srch=1&v=NdcPeRjVWsf8QkaB4PFT.Qu.9NRZxZhncxBgzLl4EvYmtRc6jrsNGAqaL44PcQ--&b=1&within=subject&within=msgtext&showthread=tm&sentiment=0&authoredby=aa&user_profiles=michaelmccaskill&postedon=pd&sMonth=11&sDay=12&sYear=2009&eMonth=11&eDay=12&eYear=2009

[investorwisdom]

since October 29, not even 2 weeks

[MWM]

how long has he had that position?

[investorwisdom]

http://www.pinksheets.com/edgar/GetFilingHtml?FilingID=6865577

[MWM]

Huge jump in the BDI this morning!

http://www.dryships.com/pages/report.asp

[investorwisdom]

I say GSL is ready now that they said the dividend is coming back and George Soros is an investor!