Peter Livanos’s GasLog led the maritime pack in 2016 with its shares showing the largest climb during a difficult year for shipping equities, Clarksons Platou Securities says.
GasLog is up 94% during 2016, a year which has seen the LNG peer group outperform other shipping sectors, analysts Frode Morkedal and Herman Hildan say.
The maritime MLP group has also performed strongly, with a 57% average improvement, the pair wrote in a report today.
“Helping both LNG and MLP share prices was the rebound in oil prices, with Brent crude almost having doubled from the lows earlier in the year,” Morkedal and Hildan explained.
By contrast, crude tanker equities have fallen by 59% this year, with dry bulk stocks the worst performers, losing 75%.
Morkedal and Hildan note that across the board maritime stocks have fallen for the third year in a row.
“While financial markets can be expected to remain dynamic we believe the poor performance the last three years means it could take some time before speculative capital in volume becomes attracted to shipping again,” the analysts said.
“For many shipping segments, spot earnings remain below cash break-even levels, thus highlighting continued balance sheet risks.”
Looking into 2017, the Clarksons analysts suggest the losing streak could end, noting a broad based share price recovery cannot be ruled out.
“As the world looks now, we expect LNG and dry bulk to be our top pick sectors for 2017 while later in the year a buying opportunity may develop in the tanker sector as well,” the analysts said.
