Container freight rates had been on the decline for several weeks, with both the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, produced by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, and Drewry’s World Container Index playing out in similar patterns. Seasonal demand for container shipping tends to grow in the lead up to the Lunar New Year, during which factories across Asia shut down, and then subside following the restocking of inventories for the first quarter. But after several weeks of sequential losses, the composite SCFI, which measures spot rates on 13 different trades between Shanghai and the rest of the world, rebounded 12.8% to a reading of 760.67 last week. Per the SCFI, rates from Shanghai to Europe spiked 32.5% from the previous week, from $584 per TEU to $774 per TEU, while rates from Shanghai to the Mediterranean grew 15.5%, from $601 per TEU to $694 per TEU. All this of course begs the question: How can two indices that measure the same thing be showing such radically different market behavior?
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