Equity Market

Most of the recent gains that have been seen in the global shipping equity market were erased over the last four weeks. Even the seemingly invincible Dow Jones is struggling to reach new record levels as investors are increasingly moving into the bond market in search of safety. The Dow Jones closed at 9,331 on Tuesday February 9, which is almost exactly the level it reached before the Asian crisis reared its ugly head. As can be seen in the graph “Let’s all move to New York”, the Oslo Stock Index has had problems getting back to its July level. It is currently 23% lower and seems to have troubles staying above the 1,000 mark for more then a trading day or two. On February 9th, it closed at 1,002.

This phenomenon, if one can call it that, must take some of the blame for the poorly performing Shipping Index in Oslo, which is shown in the graphs on the next pages. So even though shipping stocks generally have been performing under par for the last 6 months, for those stocks that are listed in Oslo, some of the blame must be put on the overall performance of the Oslo stock market. The Oslo Shipping Index is currently 38% lower than last June and 42% below January 1st 1998.

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