Peak season is with us and US retailers have been filing the shelves with more than usual alacrity before the Canadian rail strike, as well as anticipated trade tariffs, and anticipated east coast terminal strike action, and before further likely cuts in interest rates will hopefully support consumer spending in Q4. Los Angeles and Long Beach terminals reported a combined 1.82m teu throughput in July, the highest monthly total for two years, and a year to date increase in throughput of around 18% compared to 2023. This has supported Pacific ocean spot freight rates for liners who might otherwise sense that the geopolitics-engendered boom in revenues is being cancelled out by the arrival of a tidal wave of newbuilding teu capacity. According to the Freightos Baltic FBX01 index, the cost of shipping a forty foot box from China to the US west coast was $6,429 on August 16, unchanged on the week before but down 17% on the four-week earlier rate. Shippers choosing the all-water route to the US east coast found that rates had declined less, being down 1% on the week and 2% on the month at $9,411 per feu. China reported that July industrial production grew at 5.1%, the slowest rate for four months. Retail sales grew by 2.7% but unemployment was up at 5.2% compared to 5.0% in June. Crucially, fixed asset investment was down 10.2% in 2024 to date, compared to a10.1% fall in June. The investment that is required in manufacturing for export is dematerialising at an accelerating rate. Outsourcing manufacturing to China is less fashionable than platform boots. This, surely, will be what undermines the freight market for the ultra large ships being delivered into the Asia-Europe liner trades. For now though liners can enjoy the fruits of Middle Eastern conflict and the estimated 12% increase in teu mile demand caused by routing ships around the Cape of Good Hope. Freightos reports that the per-feu rate of shipping a cargo from China to north west Europe was $8,264 on August 16, down 1% on the week and 2% on a month earlier. This is a stabilisation of steeper falls reported in July, when for instance the month on month fall in rates to July 12 was 27%. For cargoes going from China to the Mediterranean, rates were assessed at $7,322 on August 16, down 2% on the week and on the month, indicating that same stability seen in the rates to north west Europe. In the more mature Atlantic freight market, rates from north west Europe to the east coast of North America were unchanged on the week as of August 16, sitting stable at $1,619, though this was 10% lower than a month earlier. Rates were also unchanged week on week in the reverse direction at $897 per feu, though this is a big increase on their early July levels of around $500 per feu. The liner companies have been reporting their first half results, with the general pattern being an increase in volumes of between five and ten per cent, but a fall in revenues and profits. For instance, Hapag-Lloyd reported a 5%volume increase to 6.1m teu compared to 5.8m teu in H1 2023, but revenues fell by 14% to $9.3bn, an average freight rate of $1,391 compared to $1,761 a year earlier. EBITDA was down to $1.9bn. The mid-year spike in earnings came too late to save the H1 results but sets Hapag-Lloyd up nicely for its third quarter report, with executives hopeful that the established seasonal pattern of higher volumes in the second half of the year will repeat this year. Hapag-Lloyd raised its EBITDA forecast for 2024