One of the latest developments in shipping asset prices has been the reluctance from shipyards to further reduce their price expectations to higher loss areas, due to the fact that they are faced with greater construction costs, as a result of the closing of the price gap between China and Japan. In its latest analysis, Intermodal, looks at the issue of inflation and its effect of ship prices around the world.
According to Mr. George Dermatis, "inflation is fast becoming our new friend... Up almost 9% for the year so far, the more than century-old blue-chip index, Dow Jones, posted last week its first finish above the record closing high of 14,164.53 set on Oct. 9th 2007, which is just ahead of the global financial meltdown.It is an undeniable fact that this new peak is reached primarily due to the extensive monetary stimuli that the Fed has provided over the past 4 years".
He added that "in Japan, the sun seems to be rising once again after decades of standing as a warning sign of what can go wrong when government debt reaches to extremely high levels. Yet enough though Japan's Nikkei 225 index stands at less than a third of its record high since 1989, the stock market has made big strides forward, climbing 35% since mid-November".
Meanwhile, in Europe, stocks rallied to their highest level in 4½ years, as investors cheered stronger-than-expected euro-zone retail sales and keyed off gains in U.S. equities. Dermatis noted that "Europe is standing at the opposite side of inflation argument, with austerity measures governing the southern countries and an almost deflationary outlook for the year ahead. Amidst heavy reforms on governance, fiscal policy and taxation amongst the country-members, the EU has managed to increase its competiveness; however pressures for monetary easing are expected to intensify as the voiced concerns in the Eurozone amplify. Let's not forget that it is the only major economy that has not resorted to this solution post-2008...Could this change soon?" he asks.
Finally, "China’s minimum wage has tripled since 2000, creating extra pressure via fast rising labour costs within China. This fact should however be looked at with greater scrunity, as the ageing population of China means a dropping supply of youth labour in the country. Environmental awareness pressures and restrictions on pollution from factories create another bottleneck in production and raise production costs across the board for Chinese manufacturing. Furthermore, the RMB is going from strength to strength and while nominal appreciation has been slower than critics in Brussels and Washington might like, real appreciation (adjusting for the country's relatively faster inflation rate) has been rapid. The Chinese currency has appreciated considerably in nominal terms as well, recording a median of about 22% against 13 Asian currencies over the past five years, as such negatively impacting the attractiveness of the country's exports. In order to combat this and drive the country's competitiveness, the only solution is through automation and higher sophistication in production, which in turn requires substantial support from the government in the form of financial aid, subsidies and access to finance (especially for the latter this column has been a regular and strong advocate of financial easing in all forms of production as an added incentive for local and/or foreign investors). These measures would mean increasing the money supply and in turn having to battle inflation once more, hopefully in a more effective way than last year's attempt to keep real estate prices and infrastructure spending under control", Intermodal's analyst noted.
So, as the factor of inflation seems to be fast-becoming ''a lesser of two devils'' for most major economies, what are the potential effects on shipping? "Secondhand prices and NB cost have seriously dropped over the past 4½ years. Current fleet profile, outstanding deliveries, market demand/supply factors all maintain their importance of course and have generated a dim outlook for the market ahead, but we cannot ignore the fact that all asset prices are subject to inflationery pressures as well. As the price gap between Japan and China is narrowing down, shipyards suffer greatly from rising construction costs and seem heavily reluctant to drop their price expectations to higher loss areas. Could this provide the necessary pillar for a reaction in prices? Could we finally be close to an artificial bottom?" the report concluded.