Although it's been the case in many occasions in the past, it appears that ship prices haven't been quite following freight market fundamentals, in terms of future prospects. According to the latest report from shipbroker Intermodal, over the past couple of months we have seen a drastic decoupling of the SnP markets from the reality of the freight markets. "This slowly developing two-tier structure is nothing new, however the widening gap between the two has recently been of much concern to most market players. But why is this gap developing and more crucially, is it sustainable?", wondered Intermodal's Research Analyst, Mr. George Lazaridis.

Attempting to explain this odd situation, he notes that "in the past any widening gap was more difficult to sustain as the fewer amount of asset players in the market left for a market environment with considerably less speculation. During the 2000’s boom this all changed rapidly as the financial markets started to heavily influence the way shipping people made investment decisions. The world of derivatives and complex financial instruments entered our world and had a profound effect, shifting our perspective of the ship itself. It no longer has the image of an industrial machine for transportation, but rather an exchangeable commodity that through time will fluctuate wildly in value. Fast forwarding to where we are today it seems that a part of that legacy has caused the creation of a more forward looking investor who is able to see the benefits of acting in a “bad market” in the hope that he has read the market correctly and that through the life of his investment the average return will be sufficiently lucrative", he said in the weekly report.

Lazaridis went on by noting that "looking at some of the latest deals that we have seen, is there any evidence that these have been done through valid analysis of the current market fundamentals or is it just wildly speculative? The answer to this is that we don’t know. With the market fluctuating in such a volatile way and so unpredictable at times, it seems to be that each investor has different beliefs as to where the market will be over the next couple of months. Its majority rule here and as the lack in serious sellers has kept buyers on their toes, prices have inevitably gone up as each interested buyer outbids the other in order to secure one of the few new sales candidates circulating the market", he said.

According to the analyst, "the nature of all these buyers has been the main driver of the recent price trends. Most upscale European buyers that would typically look at very modern units had been fairly inactive during most of 2012. Their sudden interest created a flurry of activity and over the past 5 months pushed prices up by between 15-20% for vessels of less than 10 years old across most size segments. Panamaxes and Supramaxes have been the ones drawing the most attention and as such have shown the biggest rise in prices", Lazaridis said.

Concluding his argument, he pointed out that "going back to the point of decoupling markets, freight rates have followed a wildly different course. Spot Rates are currently trending at considerably lower than the average seen during 2012 (in the case of Panamaxes that’s around 3% lower) and we haven’t even gone through the summer lull period yet. FFA’s are also supporting this point further, with expectation for forward rates being soft for a considerable period into the future, although there has been a small upward correction over the past weeks. Even in the case where one would believe of an improving market within 2014 and 2015, there seems to be no reasonable basis for paying an extra premium this early in the cycle and in effect also having to suffer through several months of poor rates, while even the possibility for a recovery being so fragile and there is a constant overshadowing threat that further new ordering could take place and once again engulf the market with excess tonnage. Bets are being placed but I’m not sure that these current premiums will be sustained throughout 2013. As things hold in certain markets such as that of modern panamaxes, it seems to be a better option to sit on the sidelines and act coy in hope that the flock of current buyers will take their pickings and leave the markets once again to drop back down to levels that make more business sense", he concluded.