NOTOS NEWS | MARITIME WEEKLY 9.2.2020

THROW IN THE TOWEL!

Last week saw another hefty correction in stock prices for energy-related companies world-wide. LNG carrier stocks dropped by 13.5% on average, fuelled by the announcement of Gaslog Partners to cut its dividend by 75%. But even good news from Double Hull Tankers, which announced a quarterly dividend of approx. 6%, was not enough to stop its stock price from dropping.

Liner companies were a remarkable exception with 3.5% increase w-o-w. Lower fuel prices helped to increase their margins. 

Our impression is that some market participants surrendered last week and their coaches have thrown in their towels. 

This week we like to add an additional chart about the development of the coronavirus since January. The data is compiled from the "Center for Systems Science and Engineering" at Johns Hopkins University (https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/). This information needs to be relied on with some caution but it is the best publicly available source we are aware of.

The graph shows the daily changes in confirmed cases in China and in the rest-of-the-world ("RoW"). In the first two weeks, the growth rate was small in absolute terms but huge in relative terms (more than 100% on January 25). Since then, absolute growth rates increased and reached approximately 4,000 new cases per day as of February 4. Since then, the number of daily new confirmed cases fell to below 3,000. This development is a good sign and we hope that the quarantine approach of the Chinese authorities will prove succesful in the coming weeks.