An empirical analysis of freight rate and vessel price volatility transmission in global dry bulk shipping market

Abstract

Global dry bulk shipping market is an important element of global economy and trade. Since newbuilding and secondhand vessels are often traded as assets and the freight rate is the key determinant of vessel price, it is important for shipping market participants to understand the market dynamics and price transmission mechanism over time to make suitable strategic decisions. To address this issue, a multi-variate GARCH model was applied in this paper to explore the volatility spillover effects across the vessel markets (including newbuilding and secondhand vessel markets) and freight market. Specifically, the BEKK parameterization of the multi-variate GARCH model (BEKK GARCH) was proposed to capture the volatility transmission effect from the freight market, newbuilding and secondhand vessel markets in the global dry bulk shipping industry. Empirical results reveal that significant volatility transmission effects exist in each market sector, i.e. capesize, panamax, handymax and handysize. Besides, the market volatility transmission mechanism varies among different vessel types. Moreover, some bilateral effects are found in the dry bulk shipping market, showing that lagged variances could affect the current variance in a counterpart market, regardless of the volatility transmission. A simple ratio is proposed to guide investors optimizing their portfolio allocations. The findings in this paper could provide unique insights for investors to understand the market and hedge their portfolios well.