In this article
01 · WHAT THE DESK KNEW
Start from the record.
Most desks review a fixture by setting the voyage result against the voyage estimate. That shows how the trip ran. It cannot show whether the call was right, because the options turned down and the desk's own view of the market were never written down.
Here they were. The decision record holds what the desk priced when it fixed the backhaul.
The backhaul, as priced on the curve of the day.
- BACKHAUL OVER 120 DAYS
- $1.75m, about $14,600 a day
- PACIFIC ROUND TURNED DOWN
- $1.61m, about $13,400 a day
- FRONTHAUL PRICED AT
- $19,500 a day: the January basket at $13,500 plus the desk's Atlantic premium of $6,000
- BREAKEVEN
- The backhaul stays ahead while the fronthaul pays more than about $17,200 a day
- HEDGE
- Half the January and February basket sold forward at $13,500. Ballast fuel swapped.
- DECIDED BY
- Chartering manager, with the hedge placed under the company's risk policy
02 · SPLIT THE RESULT
Four things moved between fixing and reopening.
The backhaul earned $130,000 less than priced. Only one part of that gap was the desk's own call. The rest was the market, the ports and the hedge doing its job.
The charter form matters here. On a voyage charter the same West African delay would have been the owner's time, recovered only through demurrage, and the gap would have been larger.
Market and ports took most of the gap. The desk's premium took the rest.
- Execution-$54k
The vessel reopened six days late after port delays in West Africa. On a time-charter trip the charterer paid hire through the delay; the owner's cost was the later, cheaper fronthaul.
- Market-$41k
The basket fell from $13,500 to $12,800 a day by January.
- Hedge+$22k
The forward sale on half the basket paid out as the market fell.
- Judgement-$58k
The Atlantic premium came in at $5,000 a day against $6,000 priced.
03 · THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Mark the Pacific round to market.
The record kept the round the desk turned down, so it can be priced on what actually happened. Pacific fixtures in December and January paid about $12,600 a day. The Pacific was weak too.
The backhaul stayed ahead, by less than priced.
| OPTION | PRICED | REALISED |
|---|---|---|
| B · West Africa backhaul | $1,754k | $1,624k |
| A · Pacific round | $1,608k | $1,573k |
| Backhaul ahead by | $146k | $51k |
04 · RIGHT CALL, SMALLER WIN
Judge the call on what was known, and the outcome on what happened.
On the curve of the day the backhaul was the better employment, and it still won. Even at the fronthaul it actually got, $17,800, it cleared the $17,200 breakeven. The call stands. One assumption behind it does not.
Priced $146,000 ahead, with the breakeven $2,300 a day below the desk's view.
$51,000 ahead of the round, after a weak market and late ports.
The Atlantic premium came in $1,000 a day under the desk's view.
05 · ACROSS THE YEAR
One voyage is noise. Nine is a pattern.
Because every backhaul this year kept its priced premium in the record, the desk can line them up. The premium was too high on seven of nine voyages, by about $700 a day on average. Five of the nine also ran late in West African ports.
The desk keeps pricing the Atlantic a little too high.
- Jan-0.9
- Feb-1.0
- Mar+0.4
- May-1.4
- Jun-0.8
- Jul+0.3
- Aug-0.7
- Sep-1.4
- Nov-1.0
- Priced when fixed
- Realised on reopening
06 · WHAT THE DESK CHANGES
The review ends in a decision about how the desk prices.
A review that ends in a chart changes nothing. This one ends with the head of chartering choosing what the desk does differently, with the reason kept beside the evidence that justified it.
- DECIDED BY
- Head of chartering
- WHY
- Seven of nine premiums were too high by a similar amount. That is a bias, and noise would not repeat in one direction.
- CHECKED AGAINST THIS VOYAGE
- With the corrected premium and port time, this backhaul would still have been the call.
- REVISIT
- After the next six backhauls, or sooner if the premium starts to come in above the view.
07 · WHAT THE DESK GAINS
About $400,000 of Atlantic value the market never paid.
Across nine backhauls the desk priced in roughly $400,000 more Atlantic value than its fronthauls earned. No single voyage review would have shown it: each miss was small, and every voyage still looked like a reasonable call.
Corrected, the bias stops leaking into the next estimate, and the correction stays with the desk when people move on. That is what a fixture record is for: the desk's own knowledge of how well it prices, written down and kept.
