One of the students which is currently undertaking the 'Virtual Shipbroker 3 month 'chartering' Mentor program' asked me a good question today.
When a charterer sends you a tc order or cargo position how does a broker know where all the ships are?
Ok here is the scoop. There are two tiers of shipbroking and chartering markets out there.
The lower tier is all the business that is seen in the various shipbroker trading platforms ou there. Small charterers, small shipowners, older ships, cargoes that are not firm, business that is not considered first class. You can if you wish enter into these markets and try your hand and doing some fixtures. Some people are no doubt making money doing this. But it is a risky business.
Then there is you first class market full of major public and private companies. Those who are doing 90 percent of the worlds big business. When you broker these markets you will receive between 700 and 1500 emails per day with both cargo and vessel positions. Guess what? Its the junior brokers job (most of the time) to update the inhouse vessel database with these open positions. A junior broker will sometime spend half his/her day on this task. Its great practice - as you get to know your geography, the names of ships and shipowners etc.
To lend a helping hand most shipping software these days comes with programms that can read the incoming emails and automatically update ship positions for you! Wow - who would have thought.
Anyway - when a new cargo comes on the market the first thing on a brokers mind is to quickly whip up a list of suitable ships. So if the junior brokers and the software has done its job within seconds a broker should have 20-30 or 50 possible candidates at the tip of his fingers. Then the phone calls begin in earnest!
Two important points
a) imprtant to have shipowners trust you enough to send you there ship positions
and
b) Many shipowners and brokers guard this information with their lives (from other brokers and traders)
Why? Because shipping is not a cost business people - its a commodity. Say lit loud - Bulk freight is a commodity business and people are there to make money........and therefore 'information' is worth gold!
Wheres my valium?
Yours VS
Dear VS
ReplyDeleteWhy would shipowners not want to open their fleet details to the market? In high BDI days, would this not be an advantage to them, as now they can have many brokers fighting for the business, and they can have a stronger arm to negotiate and get best deal for themselves.
Yours
Zubair
(Amano)