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November 01, 2021BALTIC DRY INDEX, OCTOBER 2021 The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) measures procurement costs of shipping raw materials by sea. When these costs go down, goods producers benefit from lower shipping costs, and consumers benefit from lower prices for finished products. Higher values indicate most costly shipping, with impacts on goods producers and consumers.
Recent Activity January 4, 2021 to October 29, 2021
- On January 4, 2021, the Baltic Dry index started the year at 1374
- On February 10, 2021 the index had declined to 1303.
- By October 7, 2021 the index has climbed steadily to 5650, a 334% increase over February 10.
- Some reports attribute the increase to a bottleneck in the shipping industry.
- Since the recent high in the first week of October, the index sharply declined 38% to 3519 by month end and the lowest since 12 August 2021.
QUOTES
"The breakout and move higher is consistent with a bottleneck in global shipping ", Trading View, Sep 22, 2021
"The Baltic Exchange Dry Index declined 2.6% to 3,428 on Monday, the lowest since August 11th as rates across all vessel segments weakened pressured by the ongoing concerns over demand and supply issues, as well as China's intervention in coal markets." Trading Economics, Nov 1, 2021
REFERENCES
"No Quick Fix for Shipping Crisis Creating Supply Chain Bottlenecks", Voice of America
The Shipping News
The Baltic Exchange
Baltic Dry Index Commodities
Trading View
Bloomberg (interactive chart
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