Investment strategies in market uncertainty

The nature of the global economy is one of dynamic change. Shipping is a service industry with its demand related to changes in international trade levels and patterns. As a consequence shipping is subject to sometimes unpredictable swings in demand so that the operator is required to make strategic planning decisions while navigating through boom or bust environments. While boom economies generate rising freight rates which are welcomed and encourage investment, ship operators may also have to face falling freight demand and declining freight rates that may have significant impact on profitability, often falling to uneconomic levels for extended periods. In such a period of uncertainty and declining profitability management will make operational decisions to reduce costs. However, shipping lines operate in a market environment so any decisions made to rationalize the trade may have significant long-term competitive implications. For example, traditional micro economic theory might suggest that the prudent strategy to adopt would be to close down the operation and reopen when the market conditions improve. In a world of certainty or when costs of taking this action are zero, this would be a valid strategy. However, because of fear of competitors taking up a line's market share if the shipping company exits, even temporarily, this strategy cannot be valued simply in terms of shut-down and start-up costs. A further consideration is the fact that standard capital budgeting techniques, such as Net Present Value (NPV), cannot incorporate the flexibility to respond to new information and strategic responses explicitly into their investment analysis. This paper will demonstrate the use of Real Option Analysis (ROA) to provide guidelines for decisions about closing operations in adverse market conditions.     

Trading strategies in the market for tankers

This paper introduces a new approach in timing the sale and purchase of ships in the tanker market and examines the performance of this trading strategy over the period January 1976 to September 2004. Based on the long-run cointegration relationship between earnings and price, we establish a trading model which can be used as an indicator of investment or divestment timing decisions. We also perform statistical tests using the bootstrap approach in order to discount the possibility of data snooping biases and test the robustness of our trading models. Our results indicate that trading strategies based on earning-price ratios significantly out-perform buy and hold strategies in the tanker market.     

影响未来航运市场的五个不确定性因素

始于2008年的金融危机,不仅对航运业造成重大打击,而且将影响未来航运市场的态势.我以"影响未来航运市场的五个不确定性因素"为题,谈谈对未来航运市场的思考.这五个不确定性因素是:全球化和产业转移的进程是否会出现反复,以美国为首的发达国家消费模式是否会有所转变,中国工业化道路取向和发展模式可能会进行调整,全球变暖可能会终结高碳经济的发展模式,全球经济和国际贸易全面复苏的道路恐仍艰难和曲折等.     

Evaluation of risk attitude in the shipping freight market under uncertainty

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study is to examine how market participants take risks, in other words, what their risk attitude/preference is, and how their risk attitude could be related to the shipping freight and other markets. To address them, we calibrated the risk attitude of participants in shipping freight markets from 2007 to 2013, and provided an example of the application of risk attitude. For market participants, risk attitude/preference has an important role in understanding shipping freight markets and managing risks under uncertainty. However, risk attitude is not directly observable. To achieve this, we applied a framework that consists of structural model and calibration with market data. We interpreted risk attitude and confirmed that a structural break occurred around 2008 for the calibrated risk attitude parameter. The average risk attitude of market participants tended to be more risk-averse after 2010. We conducted an additional analysis to provide an example of the application of calibrated risk attitude, using structural equation modeling to calculate a latent variable that reflected other commodity markets. We compared the risk attitude parameter and the latent variable, and clarified the relationship between the risk attitude parameter and commodity markets.     

航运市场预测与应对策略

通过对BDI虚假繁荣、HRCI下滑以及我国港口集装箱吞吐量形势不容乐观的观察与分析,指出航运市场的复苏有待时日,并指出应对策略:提高服务质量;做强核心业务;加快开发航运指数衍生品;倡导低速航行;积极利用国家出台的相关政策。     

Maritime liner shipping and the stevedoring industry: market structure and competition strategies

Globalization, liberalization, competition and spatial interaction are significant factors affecting the transformation of manufacturing industries worldwide. In the transportation and logistics industry, however, cooperation is becoming even more critical than competition in determining firms' efficiency. Cooperation has always characterized the liner sector in which strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions have generated twin effects: notable increases in ship size and falls in freight rates. Meanwhile, the stevedoring industry is undergoing privatization-driven consolidation and the emergence of global pure terminal operators. This article focuses on vertical integration between global carriers and terminal operators. We address the following key current issues:

• dedicated terminals as a strategy for cutting costs and controlling integrated transport chains;
• the struggle for supply chain control, involving global carriers versus global terminal operators, driven by financial power and technical and managerial capability.

We close analysing one of the core problems of the market, namely the evolving role of the dedicated terminals. For the pure stevedores they represent an opportunity to secure a cargo, while in the hands of the liners they enable cost stability and the possibility to put pressure on pure terminal operators.     

2008年世界船舶市场评述及展望

回顾了2008年世界船舶市场的发展,并对未来一两年的船舶市场进行了预测。2008年上半年船舶行业继续保持快速发展,但受美国金融危机影响,下半年船舶建造市场急速降温,成交缩减,船价开始下滑。未来世界经济发展前景尚不乐观、航运市场运力投放集中,因此,油船、散货船、集装箱船市场短期内仍将维持弱势,但海洋工程装置受影响程度相对较小。     

Quantifying uncertainty in high-resolution coupled hydrodynamic-ecosystem models

Marine ecosystem models are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, and are being used to estimate the effects of future changes in the earth system with a view to informing important policy decisions. Despite their potential importance, far too little attention has been, and is generally, paid to model errors and the extent to which model outputs actually relate to real-world processes. With the increasing complexity of the models themselves comes an increasing complexity among model results. If we are to develop useful modelling tools for the marine environment we need to be able to understand and quantify the uncertainties inherent in the simulations. Analysing errors within highly multivariate model outputs, and relating them to even more complex and multivariate observational data, are not trivial tasks. Here we describe the application of a series of techniques, including a 2-stage self-organising map (SOM), non-parametric multivariate analysis, and error statistics, to a complex spatio-temporal model run for the period 1988–1989 in the Southern North Sea, coinciding with the North Sea Project which collected a wealth of observational data. We use model output, large spatio-temporally resolved data sets and a combination of methodologies (SOM, MDS, uncertainty metrics) to simplify the problem and to provide tractable information on model performance. The use of a SOM as a clustering tool allows us to simplify the dimensions of the problem while the use of MDS on independent data grouped according to the SOM classification allows us to validate the SOM. The combination of classification and uncertainty metrics allows us to pinpoint the variables and associated processes which require attention in each region. We recommend the use of this combination of techniques for simplifying complex comparisons of model outputs with real data, and analysis of error distributions.     

不确定性在动态船队规划模型研究中的应用

通过分析传统船队规划问题,提出了利用鲁棒优化来建立不确定条件船队规划模型,在验证模型有效性时将已知概率的情景结合描述需求的不确定性,最后通过与需求确定情况相比较,说明本文的设计使得船队规划具有模型和解双重鲁棒性。     

Roll-induced bifurcation in ship maneuvering under model uncertainty

In this paper, a mathematical model is developed for the maneuvering motion of a naval ship and bifurcations of its equilibrium are identified in roll-coupled motion. The subject ship is a high-speed surface combatant with twin-propeller twin-rudder system. Captive model tests are conducted for the ship using planar motion mechanism. Maneuvering coefficients are calculated by polynomial curve fitting of the test data. Uncertainty distribution in the coefficients is assumed same as that of the curve fitting errors. Uncertainty in the model coefficients is propagated to full-scale simulation results by the stochastic response surface method (SRSM). This method is computationally efficient as compared to standard Monte Carlo simulation technique. The SRSM uses polynomial chaos expansion of orthogonal to fit any probability distribution. Bifurcation analysis of the mathematical model is performed by varying the vertical center of gravity as the bifurcation parameter. Hopf bifurcation is identified. It is found that the bifurcations occur due to the coupling of roll motion with sway, yaw motion and rudder angle. In the presence of wind, roll angle response in bifurcation diagram is discussed.     

观市2011

全球经济机遇与挑战并存 2011年全球经济复苏呈现"双轨"态势.国际货币基金组织(IMP)预测2011年和2012年新兴经济体和发展中国家将保持在6.5%的增长水平,略低于2010年7%的增速,其中增速最快的仍是亚洲发展中国家的中国和印度.2011年和2012年发达国家经济将增长2.5%.     

The seafaring labour market in Brazil

The most recent reports on the supply and demand for seafarers suggest that there is an increasing lack of officers for the expanding world's merchant fleet. With a focus on Brazil, this paper discusses a particular seafaring labour market highlighting specific challenges that need to be overcome. The paper looks into the current condition of the imbalance in Brazilian seafaring labour market as well as the prospects for merchant marine officers from the only two maritime schools in the country. Key issues on demand forecast and supply expectation, policy amendment, promoting maritime career, sea career commitment and maritime career empowerment are discussed to illustrate possible means to overcome the imbalance.     

金融危机下油船市场趋势

针对目前金融危机对船舶市场造成的巨大影响,提出集定性与定量技术于一体的分析模型,就国际油船市场的未来趋势进行相关研究和判断,指出油船市场与国际经济状况和国际航运市场的相关性较强;在规模指标方面,新造船订单量和二手船成交量均出现不同程度的萎缩,进入下降周期,未来仍将在低位波动;在价格方面,新造船价格和二手船价格受金融危机影响较弱,仅有小幅调整,未来将缓慢回升.     

中日航线班轮运输的运价监管

为明确主管部门对中日班轮运输的监管方式,通过对比中日航线与中韩航线集装箱运价指数和市场集中度,探讨中日航线班轮运输市场运价的实际状况,分析交通部公告提出的中日航线存在的问题以及可能采用的对策,认为中日班轮市场运价监管的重点应该是运价构成合理性和暗中回扣问题,并就运价报备制度可能起的作用进行分析。     

全球船舶订单回暖

据英国克拉克松公司（Ctarkson）最新统计数据统计，7月全球共签订58艘新船订单。达634．4万载重吨，比6月份上涨2．4倍，更是前6个月全部订单量（约524万载重吨）的112倍。     

中国造船市场分析

从中国造船企业生产能力、造船市场船舶需求、造船市场价格等方面分析中国造船市场现状,并提出中国造船工业发展的建议:造船工业要建立汇率风险预警机制;加速造船企业整合,创造更多的投资机会;加快造船业技术升级,提高配套设施水平;适当发展造船能力,走可持续发展之路。