A chorus of US analyst voices is singing an "amen" behind Jefferies' view that dry bulk shares still have some room to run in 2021 despite appreciating more than 60% already this year.
"It’s a good question. In our view the stocks are up significantly but off of what we would say is an extremely low level," Clarksons Platou Securities analyst Omar Nokta said in a message on Monday.
He said that as a group, the bulker shares are trading around net asset value (NAV), based on prevailing secondhand value assessments, which puts them slightly above pre-pandemic levels.
“Ship values remain between 25% and 60% below where they were in 2010 — the last time rates across the board were this strong,” Nokta said. “So we view the sector as still in the early innings.”
A similar take came from BTIG analyst Gregory Lewis, who noted his own bank's enthusiastic client note on the sector in February.
“We are bullish on dry bulk stocks even after this move higher,” Lewis said. “We think dry bulk stocks should continue to benefit from increasing commodity demand and the reflation trade in equities, and it helps that these stocks have largely been out of favour and underperformed for years.”
He added that BTIG is not “overly concerned” by the mere fact that bulker shares are up so much on a year-to-date basis.
"Remember the Russell 2000 is up 55% to 60% over the last year also, and bulker stocks are still underperforming the broader market over, say, a three-year period," Lewis said, referring to the popular index of small capitalisation stocks.
"I think you are asking more of a timing question — which is why we upgraded Euronav back in January — as a way to play eventual improving oil demand," Lewis added, referring to the Belgian tanker owner that is a bellwether stock in the crude sector.
"That being said, we think dry bulk rates are strong in the near term while tanker rates should continue to bound around at current levels until we see Opec start to ramp production. So it's still wait and see."
