Weekly Newsletter   Challenge account   Weekly Newsletter   


What a halted commerce tells us about economy?

Commerce
Transportation sector is usually the first one which signals trouble with the market and economy overall. But transportation sector is a wide branch. So take a look at one significant portion of it – maritime transportation.

Typically, majority of goods are still transported by sea using large cargo ships and tankers. Typically, you can see a frequent transportation between Europe and the North America.

For the first time in known history, not one cargo ship is in-transit in the North Atlantic between Europe and North America. All of them (hundreds) are either anchored offshore or in-port. NOTHING is moving (source: Superstation95)

Yellen and her cohorts were convincing us for the entire 2015 that the US is doing well and that the labor market is improving, and all slowdown is transitory.

Yet there is no commerce between Europe and Americas. Only a few ships are moving overseas and most of them are empty moving to their home ports. All other ships are pinned in their ports or at coast and not moving!

 
Commerce
(All ships are at European or American ports. No cross Atlantic traffic)
 

This is very unusual and it indicates that people are not buying that our supplies are larger than we consume and that the commerce is literally at a halt. When there is no transportation on the high seas then that is an evidence that there are no raw material orders. If there are no orders there are no buyers and sellers will have to cease their operation.

This will like domino move further deeper into the economy and everything will slowly go to a stop.

Below you can see all the ships being at coasts doing nothing or just a local traffic:

 
Commerce
(Local traffic at Spanish coast)
 

Commerce
(Local traffic at English – Netherland – Norway coast)
 

Commerce
(Local traffic at Florida coast)
 

The empty Atlantic is a scary thing basically confirming that the global economy is at halt. And that the US economy will follow soon. So, do not believe our ignorant academics at FED telling you that we are in a great shape. We are not. If we ever have been in a good shape, that shape is going to turn against us soon.

Get ready for coming recession, save money, pay off your debt, invest in a good high quality dividend paying stocks for good income which can weather a recession (such as JNJ, KO, WMT, etc.). Get ready to survive what’s coming at us. If you stocks you have go down (and they will during the recession) be ready for it mentally and do not panic. It is a normal behavior. It always happen. You stay the course and if you can be buying more shares and reinvest dividends.

You can check all those charts above online at the MarineTraffic.com website. No matter how scary it looks it is quite entertaining to play with those maps and see that there is not a single ship traveling over Atlantic.
 
 





2 responses to “What a halted commerce tells us about economy?”

  1. Very interesting data. While I think “….that the global economy is at halt” is an overstatement, the global economy….and especially equities…..are in trouble. We’ve been building cash for over 18 months, and have just started to invest a little again. I will spend sometime thinking about your data. Thank you!

    -Bryan

Leave a Reply to Martin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *