Baltic Index a Rising Tide for Dry Bulk Shippers
By Owen Vater at tickerspy.com
On Tuesday July 14, 2009, 1:10 pm EDT
Companies:Dryships, inc.Diana shipping inc.Eagle bulk shipping, inc.
The dry bulk shipping sector jumped on Tuesday after an industry pricing index showed its first gain in several days.
Related Quotes
Symbol Price Change
DRYS 5.76 +0.50
DSX 14.00 +0.71
EGLE 4.88 +0.48
ESEA 4.59 +0.34
EXM 7.41 +1.27
GNK 21.00 +2.15
KEX 31.41 +0.29
OCNF 1.38 +0.11
The Baltic Dry Index is the most popular measure of dry bulk shipping cost, and as such is used as a determinant of the sector's profit margins. The index is up today for the first time in several days, spiking by 4%. Dry bulk shipping stocks are flying on the news, some by over 10%.
As a whole tickerspy's Dry Bulk Shipping Stocks Index is ahead by 4.4%. It is now trailing the S&P 500 by -12.6%.
Excel Maritime (NYSE: EXM - News) and Eagle Bulk Shipping (NASDAQ: EGLE - News) are leading the rally with respective gains of 15% and 10%. Excel now leads the sector on a five-day basis, up by 20%.
Japan's largest iron-ore shipping company, Mitsui (NASDAQ: MITSY - News) is also benefiting from the optimism of Mitsubishi UFJ analyst Ryota Himeno. According to Bloomberg, Himeno expects the company's pretax profit to be 82.9 billion yen in the year ended March, better than the Mitsui's previous 80 billion yen forecast.
Dryships (NASDAQ: DRYS - News) and Genco Shipping (NYSE: GNK - News) are up by 7% and 9% respectively.
Diana Shipping (NYSE: DSX - News), Oceanfreight (NASDAQ: OCNF - News), Euroseas (NASDAQ: ESEA - News) and Navios Maritime Holdings (NYSE: NM - News) are all up by more than 4%.
Kirby Corporation (NYSE: KEX - News), a barge operator, is a laggard today, moving up only fractionally. AS Steamship (NASDAQ: TRMD - News) is the worst performer over the last week, down by -9%.
surf's up......crikey
