Ø Few signs of improvement
Ø Unexpected money on offer for tonnage
Ø Conflicting fundamentals making matters worse
Lurching Ever Lower!
Indian sentiment showed few signs of picking up
this week as the slide towards the mid 400s/LT LDT on dry units continued. To
that end, the market saw several cash buyers making bizarre decisions as offers
were made at seemingly impossible levels this week. Evidently, a few Cash
Buyers continued to ride the wave of optimism, confident that a market rebound
may be in order, perhaps sooner than most anticipated.
Unfortunately, the state of Indian market remains
in shambles and such gung-ho levels on offer, do not appear to be backed by end
users within the local market.
So what remains in store for India
Surprisingly, 2 of the key local fundamentals
have been at odds with one another and have been performing at opposite ends.
The local steel plate price this week steadied off and even showed marginal signs
of improvement, but that did little to boost local confidence as the Indian
Rupee continued its disastrous tumble against the US Dollar (hitting a possible
all time record low).
As such, the already nervous local sentiment that
was struggling to cope with a rapid decline over the recent past, did not
manage to find any faith in a level off (via the steel prices) and the offers
for ships continued to drop - and even withdrawn in many cases. This has made
it extremely difficult to peg exactly where levels for tonnage really stand.
While the prevailing pessimism has yielded fears of
a further drop in the Indian Rupee during the coming week, we do hope for a
bounce back (be it marginal), just so business can continue as usual in Alang.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News (Sourced from GMS Weekly). 22 November 2011
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