Baltic Dry Index: Still Hurting Out There.

For a while there, it looked like the BDI was staging a comeback. It flirted with the 4,000 range. Now we're back to the 2,500 range.



Historically, this is not such a bad place to be. This is actually a minor recovery from the Q408 disaster in the 1,000s range. In 2005 and 2006, this would have been normal.



But the problem lies between now and then. You may have noticed a slight increase for a little while. Slight as in 5x higher.



When you crash from that like that, folks have a small problem. The problem is actually visible now, in the form of idle fleets of freight ships, floating empty, going nowhere.



Mish has further commentary, including a mention of new ship orders from the good times being filled now. Those new ships will likely be standing idle, or allow older ships to stand idle.

People, if you think that is a sign of "green shoots" sitting there in the green water, you have another thing coming and it ain't pretty.

Graphs from Bloomberg.com.