Affected by the situation in the Red Sea, all shipping index (European line) contracts hit a rise or fall in early trading today.
Hong Kong and A Shipping stocks had the highest gains. Air China Ocean rose more than 12%, Ningbo COSCO and Xingtong shares rose or stopped, and COSCO HNA and Zhongyuan Maritime Control rose more than 3%.
Hong Kong stocks$COSCO SHIP HOLD (01919.HK)$An increase of more than 2%,$COSCO SHIP ENGY (01138.HK)$,$SITC (01308.HK)$An increase of about 2%.
According to the news, the situation in the Red Sea was about to break out. The US destroyed three Houthi ships, Iranian warships entered the region, and Britain and the US are about to issue an “ultimatum.”
US military clashes with Houthis
According to the US side, the Houthis hijacked a container ship within a month and launched more than 100 drone and ballistic missile attacks on 10 merchant ships involving more than 35 countries.
The “Operation Defender of Prosperity” involving the navies of the United States and nine other countries began operations on December 19, and there was a fierce clash with the militants on Sunday.
According to the US military, the helicopters aboard the two US destroyers “Eisenhower” and “Graveley” in the Red Sea responded to the rescue signal of the Maersk ship “Maersk Hangzhou”. At the time, the Houthis were trying to board the ship in four speedboats.
However, the Houthis ignored the US military's verbal warning and opened fire on the plane, triggering a fatal reaction, causing three Houthi ships to sink.
In response, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree confirmed the incident and stated that 10 fighters from the group had died or disappeared. He also called on Yemenis, Arabs, and Muslims to “prepare all options for America's escalation.”
This is the second time in less than 24 hours that the Houthis have launched a major shipping attack. Affected by this, shipping giant Maersk suspended transportation through the Red Sea.
Maersk announced that it will suspend all Red Sea transportation for 48 hours to assess the security situation. Earlier, under an escort operation led by the United States, Maersk announced on December 24 that it would resume navigation through the Red Sea.
Maersk also said that the crew aboard the attacked ship was safe, there was no sign of fire on board, and the ship would continue to sail north to the Suez Canal.
Iranian warships enter the Red Sea
After three Houthi ships were destroyed, Iran's”$IRIS (0010.MY)$The warship “Elbrus” has already crossed the Strait of Mander and entered the Red Sea.
Analysts believe that this move may increase tension in the Red Sea region and make the goal of ensuring the safety of shipping in the Red Sea region more complicated.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and the US are also taking action. According to sources quoted by The Times, Britain is working with the US to develop plans to carry out potential military attacks against the Houthis.
The report said that Britain and the US are about to issue a joint statement to issue a final warning to the rebels to stop their attacks.
Looking back, the current Red Sea crisis is mainly a derivation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Houthis began attacking ships bound for Israel or owned by Israeli entities in November to end Israel's offensive in Gaza.
This move caused global shipping companies to choose detours, which led to an increase in freight rates. The domestic related futures index has also experienced a wave of rising prices. The shipping index (European line) has accumulated a cumulative increase of more than 132% since December.
Looking forward to the future, Galaxy Futures believes that with the mass delivery of new ships, static capacity will still maintain a large pattern of excess capacity, but ship operator deviations due to geopolitics have brought a lot of uncertainty to European route fares. The detour will cause the European route to take longer, absorb excess capacity, and lead to a tightening of dynamic capacity supply. However, considering that currently there are still idle ships that can be put into operation on the European route, and currently the average speed of 17,000 TEU+ ships on the European route is less than 15 knots, and there is still plenty of room to speed up. If capacity supply is tight in the future, shipowners can rebalance capacity by increasing capacity deployment and increasing speed. Therefore, in the future, we need to pay attention to the redeployment of European capacity to determine the actual capacity supply and demand gap.
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