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Cavalier Shipping insights on the current shipping finance market and recent events in the shipping space.
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For Ship Operators, Volatility is Opportunity
In shipping, volatility isn’t noise—it’s opportunity. And in flat markets, even the sharpest traders can struggle to make the math work in their favor.
BDRY: A Valuation Unicorn Among Public Dry Bulk Shipping Stocks
Unlike most publicly-listed dry bulk shipping companies, the Breakwave Advisors Dry Bulk Shipping ETF (BDRY) trades at a slight premium. Public dry bulk shipping companies on average trade at a 25% discount to their net asset value (NAV) yet BDRY stays close to its NAV. How can this be?
Comparing Public and Private Shipping Company Valuations
Public shipping companies’ end valuations are far more variable than private shipping companies’, since the latter group doesn’t have the constant mark-to-market pricing mechanism of public markets–P/NAV–as a factor.
Shipping’s Illiquidity Premium
Is a 2% premium enough for investors to restrict their ability to quickly exit their bets in order to take profit (or minimize losses)?
The Jones Act Parallel Market
One man’s trash is another man’s … Jones Act-qualified LNG carrier?
Shipping Market Timing is Everything
When buying low and selling high account for the majority of returns in an investment, market timing is everything.
Re-post: ‘Not all equal’: Why Aristides Pittas’ latest spin-off could actually work for investors
Earlier this week, I sat down with Joe Brady of TradeWinds to discuss the recent Euroseas Ltd. spinoff and our thoughts at Cavalier Shipping.
Contextualizing Shipping Investment Returns
What is the average yearly return on a shipping investment? A decade after I was first asked this question, I’ve decided to do the math myself.
Euroseas/EuroDry 2018 Spin-off: Repeatable?
A basic corporate valuation principle: the day after a company pays a dividend, the valuation of the company will decrease by the amount of the dividend (whether paid in cash or stock).
Yet, the conventional corporate finance rules don’t often apply to public shipping companies—take the 2018 Euroseas Ltd. spin off ofEuroDry Ltd., for example.
Greek Shipping Company Spin-Offs
Last week Euroseas Ltd. (ESEA), led by Aristides Pittas, announced its intention to spin off three vintage container ships into new company Euroholdings at the end of the month.
Funding VLCC Newbuilds: Bruton Ltd
Let’s say you ordered a pair of newbuilding dual-fuel Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs). How would you fund their construction costs?
EnTrust / Belships M&A
2024’s final major shipping M&A announcement came just before the holidays, with affiliates of US-based fund manager EnTrust Global offering NOK 20.50 per share to acquire dry bulk owner and operator Belships ASA.
Port Operations + Automation
Port operations rarely make national headlines, but they do when president-elect Donald Trump (pro-union) and the world’s richest man Elon Musk (pro-automation) tweet about them, with opposing viewpoints on automation for shipping container loading/unloading.
Ship-Operating Business Model: Simple Yet Complex
The ship-operating business model is conceptually simple yet realistically hard to master, given the shipping industry’s volatile market. Some ship-operating companies have been in the business for quite some time—like DS NORDEN (est. 1871) and Western Bulk (est. 1982)—and then there are newcomers, like Costamare Bulkers Inc. “CBI” (est. 2022).
Shipping Representation in the Market
Contrast shipping’s 0% representation in the U.S. S&P 500 with its 12% representation in Norway’s Oslo Børs Benchmark Index––in the U.S., professionals often confuse "shipping" with logistics giants like FedEx or UPS; in Norway, professionals are immersed in the maritime world, with financial media regularly covering shipping and offshore markets.