Baltic Dry Index

[2] Every working day, a panel of international shipbrokers submits their assessment of the current freight cost on various routes to the Baltic Exchange.

The index can be accessed on a subscription basis directly from the Baltic Exchange as well as from some financial information and news services such as Bloomberg and Reuters.

Most directly, the index measures the demand for shipping capacity versus the supply of dry bulk carriers.

In other words, small fleet changes and logistical matters can crash rates..."[5][failed verification] The index indirectly measures global supply and demand for the commodities shipped aboard dry bulk carriers, such as building materials, coal, metallic ores, and grains.

Unlike stock and bond markets, the BDI "is totally devoid of speculative content", says Howard Simons, an economist and columnist at TheStreet.com.

Half a year later, on 5 December 2008, the index had dropped by 94%, to 663 points, the lowest since 1986;[9] though by 4 February 2009 it had recovered a little lost ground, back to 1,316.

[citation needed] During 2009, the index recovered as high as 4661, but then bottomed out at 1043 in February, 2011, after continued deliveries of new ships and flooding in Australia.

[15] Though rebounding to 2000 on 7 October,[16] by 3 February 2012, the index made a new multi-decade low of 647 on a continued glut of dry bulk carriers and decreases in orders of iron and coal.