Navios Maritime Partners L.P.

The BDI (Baltic Dry Index) is a leading indicator for the bulk shipping industry. It’s a measure of the cost of shipping major bulk commodities on a number of shipping routes.

Managers remain optimistic From September 13 to 20, ship orders for Capesize vessels fell by 0.25%, from 10.53% to 10.28%, as a share of the existing number of ships. Orders for Panamax improved from 15.34% of existing ships to 15.87%, while those for Supramax were up slightly, rising 0.04% to 4.64%. Analysts use a percent […]

Investors can look forward to higher Capesize rates during the second half of this year compared to the first half, which is positive for dry bulk shippers.

From August 23 to 30, shipping rates for Panamax, Supramax, and Capesize vessels stood relatively unchanged.

Update to Must-know: Shipping companies hit by China’s financial woes The impact of China’s financial industry The financial industry is an essential part of any economy. Without a stable financial system—one that supplies liquidity to businesses and individuals and bridges the gap between savers and borrowers—an economy can’t function as efficiently and productively as it […]

Diana Shipping is proactively investing in vessels to take advantage of the current low point for vessel valuation, and it can most likely outlast a prolonged downturn. So its valuation appears more or less full.

NAV (net asset value) is a valuation method under which a company’s value is equal to the difference between its assets and liabilities.

Why is capacity important? Analysts evaluate capacity growth to see whether it will exceed demand growth, instead of solely relying on indicators such as ship orders and ship prices that reflect managers’ perspective of future supply and demand dynamics. When capacity grows faster than demand, competition rises among individual shipping firms as they try to […]

What new build prices reflect The prices of new builds are useful indicators that reflect the dry bulk shipping industry’s future fundamental outlook. New prices often rise because of higher orders for ships. Usually, this is the result of managements’ speculation that future shipping rates (which can increase or stay the same from the current […]

The significance of second-hand ship values The prices of older vessels are another indicator that reflects the fundamentals of shipping companies. Because these vessels are sold and bought in the secondary market, it doesn’t take as long for the buyer to receive these vessels. So price movements in older vessels often reflect nearer-term fundamental outlook […]

There are two main types of contracts in the dry bulk shipping industry, spot charter contracts and time charter contracts.

This series covers key suppliers of various commodities in the seaborne market as well as indicators pertaining to economic and industry fundamentals.

Angeliki Frangou has been Navios Maritime Holdings Inc.’s chairman and CEO since August 25, 2005.

Navios Maritime Partners’ adjusted NAV (net asset value) shows that it is currently trading at a 46% discount to its NAV.

Time charter rates for dry bulk vessels have fallen considerably over the last few months. Capesize one-year rates have fallen by 40% in the last three months to $7,750 per day.

Scorpio Bulkers (SALT) has the lowest financial leverage with debt-to-assets of 31.8% and debt-to-equity of 42.6% as of September 30, 2015. But this doesn’t give the full picture.

Navios Maritime Partners (NMM) and Diana Shipping (DSX) have a chartering strategy to charter the bulk of their vessels for the long term, thus holding high fixed-rate exposure.

Newbuild vessel prices for all of the ship sizes remained constant in July 2015—compared to June 2015—according to data from Athenian Shipbrokers.

The Yorkville High Income MLP ETF (YMLP) dropped 7.69% in the week ended August 7. The broad-market SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) dropped 1.2%.

Secondhand vessels are delivered faster than newbuilds. As a result, secondhand vessels represent more of the short to medium-term outlook.

China’s iron ore and coal imports are key factors that drive shipping rates. Iron ore and coal each account for nearly 30% of the world’s dry bulk trade volume.