Shares of Scorpio group-backed Eneti have been among shipping's top gainers for a second straight week as the company's profile as a player in wind turbine installation vessels (WTIVs) begins to rise.
Eneti's shares posted a one-week gain of 12.2% on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, the second-highest rise of the 29 listings covered by US investment bank Jefferies on an overall positive week for shipping equities.
The appreciation followed a top-five performance for Eneti the previous week upon news that the Emanuele Lauro-led owner had acquired UK-based Seajacks International, an experienced operator in the WTIV market.
Investors will get a chance to learn more about Eneti's plans on Tuesday, when the company reports second-quarter earnings. It will also be the last earnings report for Eneti as an owner of dry bulk vessels, with private Scorpio Holdings acquiring sale-and-leaseback arrangements on the final five bulkers in the fleet.
However attractive the long-term prospects might be for wind energy, Scorpio made a decision last August to forgo fully participating in what has become the best dry bulk market in a decade owing to the rapid sell-off of the former Scorpio Bulkers fleet.
Indeed, just the vessels remaining from what was once a 50-strong fleet helped Scorpio-Eneti to its best quarter as a public company in the first three months of 2021.
That same strength in hire rates paced dry bulk to the top performance of the Jefferies stocks last week with a 6% gain, with Navios Maritime Partners the top overall riser at 13.8%. The largest public dry owner, Star Bulk Carriers, also logged a top five finish with a 5.7% improvement.
Dry performance
Dry bulk once again outperformed the field, as the Jefferies stocks gained 1.5% overall, still topping the S&P 500, which gained 0.07%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 index, which fell 1.1%.
The Jefferies shipping index is now up 49.1% year to date and 28.6% year on year.
In a familiar scenario, containerships were not far behind bulkers on the week with a 3% rise, as rates and the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index continued at record highs.
Jefferies lead shipping analyst Randy Giveans noted the shutdown of the Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal at the Port of Ningbo, the third-largest container port in the world, after a dockworker tested positive for Covid-19.
"The shutdown could reduce port capacity by 20%, resulting in containerships rerouting to Shanghai or skipping port calls at Ningbo," Giveans told TradeWinds. "This may lead to further congestion at other ports resulting in delayed cargoes around the world, especially if the shutdown is prolonged."
And on a week when prominent equity analyst Jonathan Chappell of Evercore ISI recommended investors start returning to long-downtrodden tanker stocks, buyers largely baulked, sending the sector down a further 2%. Rates remained poor on the crude side while firming in clean products.
LNG shipping stocks gained an average of 1%, while LPG carriers lost 1%.
