As the market saw in the spring of 2024 it pivoted with little warning, from one of feared overcapacity where carriers were forecasting a down year despite the Red Sea diversions, and BCOs signed annual contracts at normalized rates as low as $1500 per FEU, to a suddenly red hot market where transpacific spot rates were drive up to nearly $8000 in early July and Asia-Europe rates exceeded $8,000 per FEU around the same time, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
And yet despite the almost impossible task of predicting the market in the current environment, it’s still possible to identify big-picture themes that will still very much be playing out when the 25th annual TPM convenes on March 2-5, 2025.