In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Allied Shipbroking said that “it has been a difficult and troublesome year so far for the global markets and the economy. Since the onset of the pandemic fundamentals across the board have been set on a sharp tail spin, with most markets and trades receiving a strong initial shock at the end of the second quarter of the year and since then have been suffering from the numerous “aftershocks” that have been coming in. Having entered now the final quarter of the year, it seems that the difficulties being faced are far from over.

According to Allied’s Head of Research & Valuations, Mr. George Lazaridis, “the winter season for the northern hemisphere has shown that the pandemic has far from dissipated, with one after another, major OECD economies entering into a second wave of lockdowns, as had been feared earlier in the year, in an effort to bring the spread of COVID-19 under control. Most forecasts have now been “torn up” and rewritten, with the most severe and difficult scenarios that were drawn up months ago, now looking to be the base case assumption. All these developments have sent “chills” across all markets. Vitally important to trade commodities have not been able to escape the turmoil, with crude oil prices dropping once more to their lows of May, while others such as iron ore are still holding at fair levels though having seemingly lost now most of the momentum gained during the summer months”.