RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Shipping Markets and Freight Rates: An Analysis
of the Baltic Dry Index JF The Journal of Alternative Investments FD Institutional Investor Journals SP 98 OP 109 DO 10.3905/jai.2012.15.1.098 VO 15 IS 1 A1 Hélyette Geman A1 William O. Smith YR 2012 UL https://pm-research.com/content/15/1/98.abstract AB Shipping, although a crucial component of the transportation of commodities worldwide, is hardly present in the finance literature at this point. The first and foremost goal of this article is to describe and explain from an economic perspective the key features of shipping markets; the second one is to analyze the behavior of freight rates, which define the final cost of an imported commodity. The authors focus on the major index, the BDI (Baltic Dry Index), and propose some diffusion models able to capture the unique features of its trajectories, namely large swings and continuity. Their performance is exhibited on a database covering the period 1988–2010. Such spot models should facilitate the growth of the market of freight rates options, a safe hedging instrument for farmers and cooperatives that ship their grains to distant destinations.TOPICS: Commodities, mutual funds/passive investing/indexing, global, performance measurement