What's Cheap? Baltic Dry Index Near Lowest in Decades

There's no rush to nail down some space on a big boat, coal and iron ore will not be moving around like they did earlier in the decade and unless the Central/Eastern Europe and Black Sea droughts (both via GDACS on blogroll at right) intensify there won't be a lot of call for grain movement so no hurry but something to keep in mind.
From Hellenic Shipping News, June 5: 

2016 Déjà Vu Lurking As Baltic Dry Index Lingers At Lowest Levels In Decades
In yet another turn of extraordinary events, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is now hovering around the lowest level in at least 20 years.

The index currently sits at 520 index points (1 June 2020), 583 points below the reading one year ago and underscoring the difficulties currently faced by dry bulk shipowners.
While the advanced economies in Europe are starting to ease containment measures, the Covid-19 outbreak has already dealt a significant blow to the global economy, plunging both emerging markets and advanced economies into recession. Given that the dry bulk market thrives on global economic growth, the market outlook is bleak.

“The dry bulk market depends on global economic growth and with the current prospect of declining demand in 2020, the dry bulk outlook remains lacklustre for the rest of the year. The movements of the Baltic Dry Index in 2020, hovering at unusually low levels in June, underscores just how challenged the market is,” says BIMCO’s Chief Shipping Analyst, Peter Sand.

A 2016 déjà vu for dry bulk?
Some may argue that history repeats itself and the state of the dry bulk market is currently prompting flashbacks to previous years of extreme hardship. The year 2016 marked the bottom of the dry bulk market in recent decades, partly due to a slowdown of global economic activity, sluggish dry bulk demand in China and copious capacity in the market, caused by the largest ship delivery spree the market has ever seen. Consequentially, in 2016, the dry bulk fleet utilization rate also tumbled to the lowest level in this century, while the BDI bottomed out at 291 index points during the seasonal downturn of Q1 in 2016.

In May and early June 2020, the BDI reached the lowest level recorded for that period in the last 20 years. Overall, however, the BDI has yet to test the absolute low of the index. Nonetheless, 2020 is not a carbon copy of 2016, as the market is now facing a decline in demand with the global economy deep in recession. The dry bulk shipping market encountered such a decline in demand in 2009, but due to a relatively balanced supply-side back then, the market remained largely profitable that year....

...MUCH MORE