Baltic dry index below 710.Down 59% since January,Down from 2173 a year ago.

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BDIY:IND

Just a reminder.Shipping companies start losing money below 1200.Which explains some of the oldest and largest shipping companies filing bankruptcy or closing all together in the last month and a half.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-09/world-s-oldest-shipping-company-closes-amid-industry-decline-1-.html

The world’s oldest shipping company sold its last vessel and is going out of business, according to the liquidator.

Stephenson Clarke Shipping Ltd., started in 1730, has been placed into liquidation, according to a statement from accounting firm Tait Walker. The [...]

The worst recession ever? As Baltic Dry Index collapses — Worlds oldest shipping company goes out of Business – 280 year old company!

 

Worlds oldest shipping company shuts doors after 280 years. – Bloomberg

The world’s oldest shipping company sold its last vessel and is going out of business, according to the liquidator.

Stephenson Clarke Shipping Ltd., started in 1730, has been placed into liquidation, according to a statement from accounting firm Tait Walker. The Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England- based shipper, which employed nine people, sold off its final vessel in July, according to the statement.

The Baltic [...]

DOOM ALERT: Record Food Prices Hit U.S.

(Bloomberg) – Consumers are set to pay the most ever for hamburgers and steak for this year’s Fourth of July holiday as rising demand pushes beef prices to a record and increases the cost of a basket of barbecue staples.

Retail beef jumped to a record in May and the cost of seven foods commonly consumed while grilling gained 1.8% from a year earlier, according to the Bloomberg-compiled index of barbecue [...]

Euro CRISIS: A Greek insider’s shocking take on what could happen next

From Bruce Krasting:

I wrote about a conversation I had with a Greeks shipper living in Athens on May 15. In that article, I conveyed the thoughts of my friend who was convinced that the June 17 Greek elections would produce a different result than the May 26 effort to form a government. At the time he said:

When the next election comes, Greeks will not vote in anger and they will [...]

As with the EU and the eurobanks and Greece, as with Iran and Israel and the on-again, off-again nuclear weapons, as with Wall Street and the endless rounds of bailouts/bake sales, there is the establishment trying to solve real problems with endless volumes of bullshit.

by steve from virginia

It’s not hard to determine the amount of Greek debt: what was LTRO 1 and what is the upper limit of LTRO 2? One and a half trillion euros all together? How much of that belongs to ‘other’ EU countries? Not much b/c ECB debt taken on subordinates all the other outstanding debt. Figure 200 billion euros for other countries’ debt leaves well over 1.2 trillion euros of [...]

Anyone watching shipbuilding in addition to BDI? Well if so, Reuters has an article just out…

SHIP ORDERS LANGUISH IN THE DRY DOCK OF FUNDING

By Jonathan Saul and Hyunjoo Jin
LONDON/SEOUL – The cancellation of an order from South Korea’s second-biggest ship builder, the country’s first this year, signals a worsening storm as bank funding dries up and overcapacity pulls earnings further under water.

“Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (042660.KS) said late on Friday that a Greek shipper had cancelled a 589.3 billion Korean won ($514 million) order [...]

Baltic Dry Index is down 3.9% overnight to 1,186.

by ZH

The freefall in the BDIY is just ridiculous: following a steep plunge it has now gone in freefall, and is down 3.9% overnight to 1,186. And to all who are claiming that the index is merely indicating a supply glut from the onslaught of new ship arrivals, well the entire orderbook (in progress) has been public and transparent – to claim it is a [...]