Maxim Research has dropped its other shoe in its dance with the shipping sector, and it sees five owners formerly under coverage getting the boot.
Days after parting ways with shipping analyst James Jang, Maxim issued a "termination of coverage" release on DHT Holdings, StealthGas, Genco Shipping & Trading, Nordic American Tankers and Navigator Gas Holdings.
These shipowners had been in Jang's portfolio. All but sell-rated NAT had carried buy ratings from the senior analyst, who had been with Maxim about two years.
As TradeWinds was first to report last week, Maxim's separation with Jang makes it the second bank in six weeks to drop its shipping analyst and cut shipping coverage, following Seaport Global's parting with veteran stock-picker Magnus Fyhr last month.
While both are relatively smaller banks, larger counterparts UBS and Credit Suisse also dropped their shipping analysts in recent months.
Analysts concede that sluggish share prices, poor trading liquidity and small market capitalisations have made it challenging if not impossible for them to function solely as shipping specialists, causing them to enlist adjacent sectors, such as LNG and other transport verticals.
