28 Nov 2018

Xeneta is utilising its database of over 85 million contracted freight rates to deliver a unique monthly snapshot of long-term rate developments in the container industry. The new Xeneta Shipping Index (XSI™) Public Indices report, provides a detailed overview of the busiest global trade corridors, allowing users to gauge regional developments and track trends for key markets.

In June this year Oslo-headquartered Xeneta, the ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform, debuted the full version of the XSI index-linked contracting product.

Periodic contract negotiations

It enables cargo buyers and sellers to gain unparalleled real-time intelligence of market developments, meaning they can tie rates to the market. This results in fair rates, the optimal value for shippers, forwarders, and carriers, and an end to the burden of frequent or periodic contract negotiations.

It enables cargo buyers and sellers to gain unparalleled real-time intelligence of market developments

XSI Public Indices has a different proposition, as Xeneta CEO Patrik Berglund explains: “The XSI Public Indices provide an industry-wide snapshot, taking the pulse of the long-term contracted market to deliver freight rate insights on the latest developments and cast light on the highly complex, fast-moving ocean freight sector.”

Crowd-sourced rates

The XSI Public Indices are unique as this is the first time this level of visibility into the contracted market has been made available, with the frequency of updates and breadth of rate data, has ever been made available. It offers all stakeholders from all sides the possibility to freely track the long-term market’s movements, building up a month-by-month picture of trends in the key regions of Europe, the US, and the Far East, as well as global developments.”

Xeneta’s platform is built on constantly updated crowd-sourced rates pooled from hundreds of leading global players, including shippers such as Electrolux, Nestle, Unilever, ThyssenKrupp, Tata Steel, and Continental. This wealth of exclusive data covers over 160,000 port-to-port pairings. The long-term rates used in the XSI Public Indices have a valid start date within 90 days of the 20th of each month.

Downward rates trend

The US imports XSI held firm month-on-month, while the export index climbed a significant 3.1%

The first report, shows an increase in the global XSI Index of 0.7%, reversing the downward rates trend seen over the last three months. The European import market is helping drive the positive change, with the index up 1.6% year-on-year, while the export measure fell 0.1%.

The US imports XSI held firm month-on-month, while the export index climbed a significant 3.1%. The Far East sees a slight decline of 0.1% relating to imports, while the exports XSI rose 0.4%. “It’s an exciting time in the container market, with mixed performances from the carriers and protectionist tariffs beginning to impact on trade routes,” Berglund notes.

Latest market intelligence

At the moment there’s a rush to fulfil shipments from the Far East to the US East Coast before new tariffs are levied on January 1st. Going forward there’s a great deal of uncertainty about the introduction of fresh measures and the impact of existing charges on trade volume.”

It’s a complex, volatile situation. Against this background it pays to have a full understanding of the latest market intelligence, derived from the market’s most comprehensive rates database. XSI Public Indices meets that demand.” In the next few months, the XSI Public Indices will add further business intelligence, such as carrier price movements, giving a multi-layered understanding of the health of the market.