Author/Beef Brisket Editor under the Starry Sky/Spinach’s Starry Sky Typesetting/Small Fish Under the Starry Sky The Suez Canal in Egypt is less than 200 kilometers long, but it is the main artery of international shipping. As a shortcut on the Asia-Europe route, cargo ships usin

Author / Beef Brisket under the Starry Sky

Editor / Spinach’s Starry Sky

Typesetting / Little Fish under the Starry Sky

The Suez Canal in Egypt is less than 200 kilometers in length, but it is the main artery of international shipping. As a shortcut on the Asia-Europe route, cargo ships using the Suez Canal must detour through the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, which will extend the voyage by seven days.

Such an important international shipping artery should be very wide, right? Unfortunately, the water surface width of the Suez Canal is only about 300m. Our editor, Brother Xiaoyu, once worked as a seaman. According to Brother Xiaoyu, sailing in the Suez Canal requires the captain to concentrate on steering the ship. A slight carelessness will bring disastrous consequences.

Oil tanker in the Suez Canal Photography/Little Fish under the Starry Sky

Last week, the Ever Given, a super-large cargo ship from Baodao, ran aground in the Suez Canal, causing a major ship jam in international shipping. This incident not only alarmed the Egyptian president, but more seriously, global trade will suffer a weekly loss of 6 billion to 10 billion US dollars. Fortunately, good news came today. After several days of rescue operations, the Tianci finally floated!

The Tianci that blocked the Suez Canal

Although the main artery of international shipping will soon return to its former calm, the ship blockage also reminds us that even with the rapid development of aviation and high-speed rail, maritime shipping is still the global supply An indispensable link in the chain.

The Great Ship Jam of the Century

On the surface, aviation, high-speed rail and shipping are substitutes for each other. However, due to differences in application scenarios, various logistics methods are actually incompatible with each other.

Air transportation is the most timely, but it is also the most expensive. Only high-value goods can afford air transportation. Although railways and sea transport both serve the transportation of bulk commodities, there are still differences between the two:

1. Generally speaking, sea transport is the slowest, but the unit cost is also the lowest. For goods that do not require timeliness, sea transport is the most efficient. There are cost-effective options;

2. With the speed of railways, international railway freight has become a method between air freight and sea freight. Both price and timeliness are in a moderate position;

3. International railway freight There are also troublesome links in the process. For example, due to the difference in railway track spacing, the China-Europe special train needs to change trains twice in Kazakhstan and Poland ; in contrast, the international shipping standards are more common, which saves the need for trains. A lot of trouble.

Although aviation and high-speed rail are currently more popular among public opinion, judging from the performance of stock prices since the epidemic, shipping, which has little presence, has taken the lead. The stock price of COSCO Shipping Holdings, the leading shipping company, has increased by more than three times from the low in the second quarter of last year to the periodic high in January this year. Behind the guarantee, we cannot do without the power of cycles.

Ocean shipping is essentially a cyclical industry. Since the main income of shipping companies is freight, the cyclical fluctuations in fundamental freight rates of shipping stocks are highly correlated. From experience, the external manifestation of the cycle is that freight rates usually cycle every four years. The root cause of this phenomenon is the mismatch in rhythm between global shipping capacity as supply and international trade volume as demand.

So what is the situation like in this cycle?

In 2016, international shipping rates hit rock bottom, even lower than the low point after the global financial crisis in 2009. Shipping companies experienced large-scale losses. The most representative one is that the former global shipping giant Hanjin declared bankruptcy, and this bad luck was directly passed on to the upstream shipbuilding companies - Daewoo Shipbuilding, the world's largest shipbuilding group at the time, also fell into a heavy debt crisis. The launch of new ships is an important source of new shipping capacity. The downturn in shipyards has further slowed down the recovery of shipping capacity (of course, this is a positive factor for rising freight rates).

However, the demise of the old species also creates conditions for the emergence of the new generation. South Korea's shipping and shipbuilding industries have since given way to their Chinese counterparts, which have a stronger production capacity advantage. In the first three quarters of 2020, China's new shipbuilding orders accounted for 58.3% of the global share. In addition, regardless of the China's shipbuilding industry ranks first in the world in both the number of completed orders and the number of orders on hand.

The booming scene of China's shipbuilding industry cannot immediately alleviate the tension in international shipping capacity. In 2020, the proportion of new ship orders reached a historical low, and according to common sense, it takes at least 2 years for a new ship to be launched from order to launch.

International shipping currently needs to rely on the delayed scrapping of old ships to support itself, but this is only a short-term emergency plan. No matter how "delayed retirement" is, the old ship will be scrapped one day. If the old ship is scrapped when the new ship is launched, then the total transport capacity will not increase explosively. Therefore, shipping freight rates, which have exceeded the high point of the previous cycle, will still have the motivation to maintain high levels in the future - and this is undoubtedly a core positive logic for A-share shipping companies.

In addition, new changes have also appeared on the demand side of and .

RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) is undoubtedly a good thing. RCEP is not only the free trade zone with the largest population, the largest trade scale, and the most potential in the world, but more importantly, the rules are dominated by my country.

One of the most significant features of free trade is the reduction of tariffs, which will ultimately lead to a reduction in the retail price of goods. According to basic principles of economics, a decrease in price will increase demand. Therefore, with the advancement of RCEP, the trade volume between member countries will further increase, and my country's shipping companies and shipbuilding companies, relying on their location advantages, are first-come-first-served.

Over the weekend, the star Chinese concept stocks in the overseas market fell collectively. It is said that the cause was Bill Hwang, an Asian capital tycoon who looks very much like Yue Yunpeng. Because his funds have recently been intensively exploited and increased leverage, they have collapsed and been liquidated by investment banks. edge. The internationally renowned investment banks Goldman Sachs and Nomura Securities that provide services have also suffered. When

was prosperous, he made 24 times his profit in 10 years, and his annualized income was equivalent to 2 Buffetts. But such an astonishing rate of return is inseparable from 3 to 4 times leverage. According to conservative estimates, he lost up to 10 billion US dollars in one day, which is equivalent to 2 Cai Songsong's Nuoan Mixed Growth.

Bill Hwang of Noan Growth lost two shares in one day.

This boss’s heavy holdings include the first e-cigarette stock, Smoke Core Technology (RLX), and the policy attitude towards e-cigarettes has changed. (

Cai Songsong, who is full of semiconductors, was a little depressed some time ago. Now Manager Cai may return to the throne of Emperor Cai. Lin Guangmao, the futures boss who has experienced ups and downs, has a wonderful summary of this:

"There is no root, floating and empty joy, but no understanding The Man Who Trapped in the True Sutra.”

Note: This article does not constitute any investment advice. The stock market is risky, so you need to be cautious when entering the market. There is no harm if there is no buying and selling.