Are we, the media, guilty of using the term black swan a tad too much? One encyclopaedia describes a black swan event as “unexpected and therefore difficult to prepare for but often rationalised with the benefit of hindsight as having been unavoidable”. A quick check of the Splash archives and I’m relieved to see we have used the phrase just five times this decade including once when reporting on Dubai-based Black Swan Petroleum buying an elderly tanker. Nevertheless, in general, the term has become an easy go-to explainer for analysts and journalists alike in recent years. It is meant to mean something no one could predict, but this increasingly ugly duckling jargon gets thrown in to explain all manner of events and developments, many of which are highly predictable. I enjoyed a recent shipowner dialogue held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong (more of which is filed by our special correspondent this month), in which an enormous range of topics was squeezed into just one hour. A highlight during the session came – as they so often do at any events – during the questions and answers session with the audience during which a well-known local historian and journalist upbraided the panellists for their use of the words black swan, especially in the context of the ongoing Red Sea shipping crisis. There have been at least seven incidents since 1956 of Middle East conflicts resulting in the disruption of maritime trade, the panel was told. Quite so. We do need to rein in how we describe entirely predictable things. Contents Front page: Armed security costs rocketEditor’s Comment: Reining in black swansMarch 2024 ReviewMarkets TankersMarkets Dry BulkMarkets ContainersAnalyst AbstractMonthly BrokerFeature: Ship valuationsInterview: Mark JacksonDataOpinion: Spreading the word outside our own industry TagsSplash Extra Archive Splash Extra March 2024