The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#1

Post by walterbell » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 12:21 PM UTC

The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness
bloombergview.com

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#2

Post by ptype » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

These charts are meaningless with such a short history, at least include 2008 in them.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#3

Post by foobarian » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 1:10 PM UTC

ptype wrote: post #2

These charts are meaningless with such a short history, at least include 2008 in them.

I also don't appreciate that the Y axes are not 0-based.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#4

Post by brc » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 1:16 PM UTC

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes.

The Baltic dry should be studied in conjunction with other indicators such as yield curves and indications of credit tightness.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#5

Post by neffy » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #3

ptype wrote: post #2

These charts are meaningless with such a short history, at least include 2008 in them.

I also don't appreciate that the Y axes are not 0-based.

Indeed. And for at least the ones that are measured in prices, we have to assume oil price drops account for a lot of it.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#6

Post by pithon » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #3

ptype wrote: post #2

These charts are meaningless with such a short history, at least include 2008 in them.

I also don't appreciate that the Y axes are not 0-based.

Why zoom out and lose the fidelity? So people who don't actually pay any attention to the axes/labels/etc. can walk away with a slightly better understand of the graph with their casual glance than they otherwise would have?