Baltic Dry Index
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has been called “an efficient economic indicator of future economic growth and production.” That might be a bit of a stretch but it is a useful piece of information. Wikipedia has a page with further information about its origins and what it is based on, suffice to say that it is a measure of shipping prices of various dry bulk cargoes. For balance an alternative assessment of the BDI can be found here. The point is not to use the BDI as a trading strategy but as another important piece of the jigsaw to be used when trying to determine how the global economy is travelling.
The next chart shows some component indices:
This chart shows dirty tanker and clean tanker (oil & gas) indices:
Baltic Dry data can be obtained here.
