Just now, a sharp drop of nearly 10% – what happened?

Today, the container freight index (Europe route) futures weakened significantly, with a drop of nearly 10%.

Lei Yue, head of the shipping team at Haitong Futures Research Institute, believes that the trading logic on the board has shifted from "inflection point expectation trading" to "inflection point confirmation + downside speed game". Lei Yue stated that at the end of June, the MSC, PA, and OA alliances successively lowered their quotes for early July, providing clear spot guidance for the market, and the main contract of the container freight index (Europe route) futures successfully completed the rollover from the 2607 contract to the 2608 contract. Currently, the 2607 contract is fluctuating narrowly around the delivery valuation, while the 2608 contract, being in the early stage of spot decline, has intense long-short competition and large fluctuations.

Chen Zhen, senior shipping and macro analyst at Founder CIFCO Futures, analyzed that four risks need to be monitored in the future: First, individual liner companies may still issue price increase letters for the second half of July. Second, Europe and the US may initiate a new round of tariff wars. The US's first forced labor Section 301 tariff may replace the 10% tariff under Section 201 on July 24, and the results of the second overcapacity Section 301 investigation may be announced soon. Recently, there has been tariff-induced rush shipping on both European and American routes, which will further deplete future cargo volume. Third, the outlook for the Middle East situation is unclear. The US-Iran negotiation process is not smooth, and vigilance is needed against periodic geopolitical tensions leading to an increase in risk premiums. Fourth, the latest closing price of the 2607 contract is nearly 40% higher than that of the 2608 contract, and attention should be paid to the excessively high premium. (Futures Daily)