IT is encouraging to see that the language of company reports is slowly becoming more optimistic.
The change is subtle, but the doom laden panic that was peppered throughout the first quarter announcements is gradually being replaced by more measured vocabulary.
The third quarter numbers may still be red, but the forecasts at least are now focussing on long-term recovery rather than the immediate prospect of imminent collapse.
Solid evidence of a sustainable growth still seems to be elusive. But as d’Amico International Shipping chief executive Marco Fiori put it last week this is a marathon, not a sprint. The fact that most are now preparing for a long-haul recovery speaks volumes about the cautious optimism that is being whispered about.
Ignore talk of green shoots, that is a jump too far. One of the industry’s more literary scholars was recently overheard quoting AE Housman’s take on the prospects of recovery – “the world has still much good, but much less good than ill”.
Despite the recent rise in Baltic Dry Index, prospects for the shipping industry are expected to remain foggy for the near term. The unpalatable truth is that true underlying consumption has not yet picked up in any sustainable way.
As the world turns its back on the worst of the economic recession, the shipping industry still has its own problems to deal with, not least the ever present spectre of overcapacity. The road to recovery remains long and bumpy, or as the company report authors would have it – the operating environment remains “challenging” and the outlook “cautious” for the rest of 2009.
