The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk freight benchmark rose on Monday, ending a run of ten consecutive declines as a recovery in larger vessels outweighed continued weakness in the panamax market. The Baltic Dry Index gained about 1.4% to reach 2,546 points, according to Hellenic Shipping News — Dry Bulk, which carried figures supplied by Trading Economics. The index tracks freight rates for vessels transporting dry bulk commodities.
Capesize provided the main impetus for the turnaround. Its index climbed 3.6% to 3,365 points, bringing its own ten-session losing sequence to an end. The source describes capesize ships as typically carrying cargoes of 150,000 tonnes, including iron ore and coal. The advance in that segment was larger in percentage terms than the rise in either the overall Baltic benchmark or the supramax index.
The report linked the capesize recovery partly to firmer iron ore prices, against a backdrop of stronger crude steel production and economic growth in China that exceeded expectations. It presented those developments as contributing context for the larger-vessel rebound, rather than as evidence of a recovery across every dry bulk ship class covered in the update.
Supramax recorded a much smaller improvement, with its index increasing by 0.2% to 1,868 points. That modest rise put the segment alongside capesize in positive territory on the day, although the scale of the two movements differed considerably. The overall benchmark’s reversal therefore coincided with gains in both of those vessel categories.
Panamax moved in the opposite direction, falling 1.2% to 2,286 points. The report identifies the segment with vessels usually transporting 60,000-70,000 tonnes of coal or grain. For grain freight, that left the relevant panamax measure lower even as the headline dry bulk index broke its extended downward run.