A portfolio analysis of market investments in dry bulk shipping

By considering a shipowner’s financial commitments as investments, the development of a hedging strategy in shipping can be treated as a portfolio optimization problem. This is especially necessary now freight futures provide a comparatively novel medium for hedging risk in dry bulk shipping markets. Logical and useful results are produced by an empirical application of the Markowitz portfolio selection methodology to dry bulk shipping markets. The portfolios that the optimization process prescribes imply the potential power of freight futures as a tool for hedging risk in shipping. With greater acceptance of their role amongst decision makers in the industry, it is concluded that new patterns of chartering will emergy in the future and that traditional methods of appraising shipping investments, which take no account of portfolio risk, will become increasingly inadequate with greater interdependency between investment options.