The US stock exchanges opened with a heavy price slump across sectors on Friday following ominous news of the newest Covid-19 variant.
Shipping fell even faster than the drops in broader equity indices in the year's worst one-day slump. And cruise shares suffered far more than shares of shipping companies.
Most shipowning shares started the day down in the 3% to 5% range, many improving substantially by noon local time.
By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.48% at mid-morning, and the Nasdaq Composite Index had fallen 1.6%.
But shares of cruise ship operators Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings all suffered market-open losses of near 10% over the previous day of trading and lost more value during the day.
News of the Covid-19 variant identified in South Africa has led to renewed travel restrictions, following researchers' description of a new and potentially harder-to-stop version of the virus.
The bloody market open came on a day normally best known as an annual retail spending play date. The Black Friday swing in trading results was accentuated by following a day of closed markets on the US Thanksgiving holiday.
Analyst comment was in scarce supply on Thanksgiving, with markets open for only part of Black Friday.
Cruise collapse
Carnival opened at $18.07 per share, down 10.4% from the previous close of $20.16, and closed down by 10.94%. Norwegian, like Carnival, slumped through the day, then recovered, and closed down by 11.36%.
But Royal Caribbean, biggest loser among the big three of floating hospitality, opened down and kept falling, losing more than $10 per share. It fell by 13.02% from $78.34 at last close to $68.14 at close Friday.
In shipping proper, however, some owners posted credible recoveries after the disastrous open.
Nasdaq-listed bulker, tanker and container ship owner Navios Maritime Partners bucked the trend. The Angeliki Frangou-led company took a 4.26% hit when markets open, losing $1.14 per share to open at $25.60, down from $26.74 at Wednesday close. But by noon the share had won back all but $0.40 of its loss.
Likewise, New York Stock Exchange-listed container ship owner Danaos cut a 3.47% loss on open to 0.43% at close.
But not all tonnage providers and financial owners made up that much of their losses.
Financial shipowner SFL Corp opened only 2.13% down at $8.30 per share and before noon was down by more than 3%, but by the close had trimmed this loss to 1.65%.
Container ship and bulker owner Costamare opened at $12 per share, or 3.23% down from the last close of $12.40, but only managed to cut this loss to 2.58%.
Several dry-bulk pure plays posted an improvement through the day to partly overcome the Covid-19 news that weighed down markets.
Eagle Bulk Shipping showed a 3.44% loss on open but was down by only 0.82% by close, compared with Wednesday's close. Fellow Nasdaq-listed dry stock Genco Shipping & Trading was initially down by 4.08% but improved this to a 1.09% loss at close.
