Apparently ocean freight rates for various commodities are tumbling simply because of the supply of vessels available to transport such goods.
I know very little about the ocean freight industry other than that internationally based companies, such as Dryships (Nasdaq: DRYS) have exhibited considerable volatility as the market has boomed and now crashed.
The big difference between ocean shipping and land shipping is that inexpensive freight transit can only be performed by railways, while oceans are only limited by the number of ships you can manufacture and port facilities. Trucking is not commercially competitive with rail freight (except for delivery to the “last mile”) and as energy prices continue to rise, rail will continue to be very relevant in the future.
The two large Canadian companies in this space are CN Rail (TSX: CNR) and CP Rail (TSX: CP), both of which are trading at healthy, but not ridiculously overpriced valuations.