This week’s frenzied and chaotic race for the White House has done little to soothe the nerves of the shipping industry. The Covid-19 pandemic, collapsed oil prices, depressed trade growth and the climate emergency will all be tackled differently depending on the results of the titanic struggle between Republican incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden for the US presidency.
The expected clean-cut victory for one side did not happen and the American people remain distinctly divided. The House of Representatives and Senate were similarly spliced in two, with the Democrats and Republicans respectively expected to retain majorities. This will make any president’s job difficult.
The fact that Trump declared an early victory before the full results were in and indicated he might not accept the result of the election served to increase the tension.
But does this political pantomime really mean much for the maritime world?
The biggest problem is that Trump does not agree with an international rules-based system, hence his disdain for the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization. Would the already troubled IMO be next on his list for institutions to be thrown overboard?
Shipping intelligence services such as VesselsValue told its customers to “forget morals, politics or personal opinion” and concentrate on trade data to view which US politician would be best for shipping markets.
“Tankers for Trump” — meaning this shipping sector would benefit from his ongoing presidency on the back of Iran sanctions, blacklisting of certain tanker fleets and support for US crude exports.
Score draw
This is right, of course. Volatility is a wonderful thing for some tanker owners short term, but constant upheaval is not the best way to run a global economy.
VesselsValue believed it should be “Bulkers for Biden” and “Boxships for Biden” because Trump’s protectionist policies and trade war with China have been bad for these sectors.
So it is a shipping score draw and, anyway, could we be sure Biden will heal the rift with his country’s superpower rival in Beijing?
Trump is a dangerous maverick with inflammatory rhetoric and a disdain for legal institutions that does global business like shipping no real good and plenty of harm
To my mind, Trump is a dangerous maverick with inflammatory rhetoric and a record of unpredictable behaviour. But the election results so far this week show his nationalist populism strikes a chord with a big part of the American electorate.
So the polarised views of the US population are not going to disappear — whoever is president — as are the Covid crisis and climate change. Both of these stand to be tackled quite differently by Trump or Biden.
The bad news on the former, of course, is that a second wave of the pandemic is sweeping Europe and triggering new lockdowns.
This dented global equities last week, with shipping stocks particularly hard hit — many down by 10%.
Oil prices and VLCC tanker hire rates were also depressed.
The Baltic Dry Index had been recovering in recent weeks, but this week slumped to 1,263 — down nearly a quarter on the year.
There are hopes that big tanker fortunes can be revived by the increasing “contango” of current oil prices being lower than future ones. This offers the kind of storage opportunities that led to the tanker boom in May and June.
On the day of the election, there was a Wall Street rally built around opinion polls showing Biden as the favourite.
There was also positive news coming out of China, with the Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index coming in at 53.6%.
This measure of business confidence has grown for six consecutive months and is now at its highest level for 10 years.
Positive news
China is the only major economy predicted by the International Monetary Fund to grow — in this case by just under 2% — during 2020. Meanwhile, Europe, having bounced back in the third quarter to expand by 12.7%, is now expected to contract by 2.3% in the final three months of the year.
The China comeback has been good for boxships, with the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index up by a further 4% last week. Clarksons Platou Securities believes that prevailing rates for panamax boxships are at their highest levels since July 2011.
Shipping, like most business sectors, needs stability for longer-term success. Let's hope a new — or incumbent — US president can provide it.
