Container freight rates will hit bottom in mid-2023 according to HSBC

The fall in container freight rates, now almost in free descent (-6% is the average drop in their value recorded this week by Drewry), will stop in the middle of next year, according to the latest estimate by HSBC’s Global Research division. Shipping Italy reported

To account for this forecast is Seatrade Maritime, which underlined how in this analysis the bank has anticipated, and by a lot, the expected end of the decline in tariffs compared to what it had predicted in a report published at the beginning. in September, in which he instead forecasted their decline as probable until 2024.

Furthermore, by the end of 2022, tariffs could already reach the same average values as in 2019, giving rise to various corrective actions by carriers.

The observation of the decline of the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, which has fallen by 51% since the end of July to an average -7.5% per week, as well as the gap still visible between freight rates, would have led HSBC to review its accounts. for spot shipments and those from long-term contracts, with the former well below the latter especially on the transpacific routes.

At the same time, the company hypothesized a decrease in the underlying transport demand, and an increase in the available hold, even greater than those previously estimated, the latter as an effect of the resolution of bottlenecks and port congestion.

Another forecast by HSBC concerns the profitability of the companies, which he believes will hit bottom in the second half of next year.

More specifically, the institute said it believes in the third quarter of 2022 that liners will continue to make profits as they did previously, but at the same time it has cut the estimated profits of the same container companies by 51% for the entire period of 2022. – 2024