Market rate outlook

Xeneta's Market rate outlook offers a predictive view of the possible future long-term market rates on select corridors based on machine learning and advanced data analysis algorithms.

View rate outlook

You can access Market rate outlook via the Monitor section of the main navigation menu, or simply by clicking on the banner in Market benchmarks:

The section on the left of the page allows you to select a specific corridor, while the main section features a chart that shows the historical market rate alongside our predicted outlook for the next three or six months.

You can also adjust the displayed historical data using the available market metric filters — select the market segment, contract length, container type, or time period.

To the right of the chart, you'll find our market analyst commentary that helps put the outlook into context and highlights the key factors contributing to the predicted view of the market.

Outlook scope

Market rate outlook can provide a 3-month and 6-month predictive view of long-term contracted rates for the 40' DC container type on trade lanes within the following major regions:

Far East Main
Mediterranean Main
North Europe Main
South America East Coast Main
South East Asia Main
US East Coast Main
US West Coast

Outlook methodology

The future market trends offered by Market rate outlook are based on Xeneta's in-house data model that combines a vast amount of historical rate data with machine learning, analyst expertise, and community insights.

Specific key indicators that we use in our data model include multiple operational and macroeconomic factors:

Containership order book
Deployed capacity
Blanked sailings
Delivered volume
Import and export volumes
Fuel price trends
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)
Private consumption trends

We update the outlook data monthly, with market analyst commentary provided every quarter.

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Note that the outlook is not meant to forecast market disruptions or black swan events. However, if or when such events do take place, we'll make sure to consider their impact when updating the outlook.

Prediction range

The prediction range of Market rate outlook reflects how it has performed over time and shows the expected margin of error based on its historical prediction accuracy starting from its launch in October 2024 up to today.