New Indices To Cover Maritime Shipping Sector

Capital Link Shipping, a New York based investor relations and advisory firm, this week announced the launching of a set of indices to track the different classes of shipping stocks. Here is a listing of the new indices:

• Capital Link Maritime Index
• Capital Link Tanker Index
• Capital Link Drybulk Index
• Capital Link Container Index
• Capital Link LNG/LPG Index
• Capital Link Mixed Fleet Index
• Capital Link MLP Index

The components of the indices all trade on the U.S. stock exchanges. Component values in the indices will be market cap weighted and updated at the end of each trading day.

I think these indices will be a great tool for investors. Until this development the most used source of shipping information were the Baltic indices. These are shipping cost trackers and their results on the Baltic exchange do not always translate to shipping stock values.

Investors and financial commentators have a tendency to lump all shipping stocks together and it is a nice feature to see the breakdown of the sector into smaller sectors. What happens in the tanker business may be completely different than the factors affecting dry bulk or containers. Now you can see how the different sub-sectors are faring.

If like I am, you are interested in income stocks please note the MLP Index. While most off the indexes listed above are in negative territory for 2009, The CL MLP index is up 29% for the first half of 2009.

I will close with some good links about the indices:

• Closing values: www.maritimeindices.com
• Index components
• Capital Link Shipping

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