Volatility Redux

Owners of tankers are accustomed to weathering spot markets with occasionally bouncy and volatile rates. An analysis of ten year’s worth of Arabian Gulf to Far East VLCC Worldscale rates, however, suggests that since 2002 swings in these rates have grown noticeably greater than those of the prior five years. From the following chart, compared to the period 1997 to 2002, the standard deviation – as a gauge of volatility – of monthly rates from 2003 through August 2007 is nearly 60 percent higher.