Shipping operators have, historically, had two alternating assumptions about their world: 1) we’re all going to be multi-billionaires; 2) we’re all going to die horribly.

The institutional and retail investors who have financed much of their expansion in recent years have their own less-than-fully-rational investment philosophy: whatever the Baltic Dry Index has done between yesterday and today tells us what will happen to our stocks over the foreseeable investment horizon.