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- [00:00]
Joe Weisenthal
Running a business means dealing with a lot of overly complicated Software, and most CRMs tend to follow the same pattern. They're packed with endless features. You'll never use interfaces that feel clunky, and teams end up spending way too much time just trying to find basic information. Today's sponsor pipedrive is a simple CRM tool designed for small and medium businesses. Pipedrive brings you entire sales processes into one dashboard, giving you a crystal clear, complete view of sales processes and customer information. Designed to help teams stay in control and close more deals faster. It's it all centers around the visual sales pipeline, where you can see every deal, what stage it's in, and what needs to happen next. Since everything is in one platform, pipedrive is designed to unite your team, keep track of sales tasks and stay on top of your leads. Switch to a CRM built by Salespeople for Salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive right now. You'll get a 30 day free trial. No credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.comsimplecrm to get started. That's pipedrive.comsimplecrM the thing about AI for
- [01:02]
IBM Representative
business it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business lets create smarter business.
- [01:29]
Public Representative
IBM Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend so small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on Public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by
- [02:24]
Public Holdings Brokerage Services by public investing member FINRA SIPC advisory services by public advisors SEC registered advisor crypto services by ZeroHash. Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete disclosures@public.com disclosures there's a little
- [02:43]
Tracy Alloway
bit of debate over Anton's own naval experience, but we can get into that. But, Anton, you have some naval experience? Sort of.
- [02:52]
Anton Posner
Are you teeing it up for Margot to make fun of me now? Because I was just a reservist, so I fully embrace the fact that I do not have grand military experience. Okay. I served. I was in reserves. I put on the uniform. I wish it could still fit.
- [03:06]
Tracy Alloway
But I heard you played a lot of tennis.
- [03:09]
Anton Posner
I played tennis and Rota, Spain, you know, on a NATO exercise. I'll have you know, Tracy, it was a NATO military exercise, and I don't think I was that all right.
- [03:19]
Margot Brock
Your exercise was tennis for your exercise
- [03:23]
Anton Posner
today, by the way, I'd like to say that Jerez de la Frontera was fantastic for wine and sherry. So, you know,
- [03:32]
Tracy Alloway
Joe, I want a T shirt that says Ruthless Utility Maximizer.
- [03:35]
Anton Posner
Black Gold.
- [03:36]
Tracy Alloway
Let's talk about losers.
- [03:38]
Anton Posner
Who cares?
- [03:38]
Tracy Alloway
I've decided I'm going to base my entire personality going forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US Skulls Unlimited. Ooh, what's the ticker for that?
- [03:47]
Joe Weisenthal
No, I think that, like, in a couple years, the AI will do a really good job of making the odd lots podc.
- [03:54]
Tracy Alloway
I get more popular and successful.
- [03:56]
Joe Weisenthal
One day that person will have the mandate of heaven. We do have the perfect guest.
- [04:02]
Tracy Alloway
You're listening to Lots More where we catch up with friends about what's going on right now.
- [04:07]
Joe Weisenthal
Because even when odd lots is over, there's always lots more.
- [04:10]
Tracy Alloway
And we really do have the perfect guest. I feel a little bit stupid.
- [04:19]
Joe Weisenthal
Go on.
- [04:20]
Tracy Alloway
But on Monday, obviously, the.
- [04:22]
Joe Weisenthal
Wait, you're just. Just now for the first time. No, I'm just kidding.
- [04:25]
Tracy Alloway
Thanks, Joe. Thank you. Obviously, the war with Iran happened on the weekend and is still happening. And on Monday, I woke up and I was thinking about energy markets and, you know, geopolitics in the Middle East. And I was trying to think of someone who would be really good to talk about shipping. And I'm embarrassed to say it took me a full 24 hours to remember that we actually have Marine chaos experts basically on speed dial at the moment.
- [04:53]
Joe Weisenthal
Well, it's perfect because we are experiencing Marine chaos. Obviously. We're recording this. March 4th. Yesterday, Trump posted on Truth Social talking about the US actually playing a role as sort of an insurer of last resort. Because one of the things that we've been seeing is like setting aside the sort of logistical ability to get goods out of the region, get whatever out of the region, there's obviously the question of can you get insurance? And we know that, you know, prices are soaring, etc. You know, insurance costs getting too high could end trade flows regardless of the actual logistics on the ground.
- [05:28]
Tracy Alloway
And so, well, not just insurance premiums getting too high, but insurance being pulled altogether.
- [05:32]
Joe Weisenthal
Getting pulled altogether. That's right. So they, you know, they are their own entity that's sort of like separate from national. You know, there's nations and then there's insurers and they have quite a bit of say over what moves and when and where.
- [05:45]
Tracy Alloway
Well, all of this just confirms my long running suspicion, as you know, that insurers actually control the world in a very underappreciated way. We should talk to, we need to insert like a sound effect here, speed dial. Our marine chaos experts. They are of course, Margot Brock and Anton Posner. They are the founders of Mercury Group, which specializes in dry cargo and global freight logistics. So really the perfect people to talk to about this moment. Let's just talk about what you're seeing right now with the Strait of Hormuz. You have a lot of clients who I assume have some presence there. Again, you guys sort of specialize in dry bulk, dry cargo, but you have a good handle on what's going on. What are you seeing and witnessing and living through at the moment.
- [06:29]
Anton Posner
Sure, yeah. It's always great for us to be on during marine chaos time. Right. As I mentioned to Tracy yesterday, I think that's going to be new business cards for Margo and I. Chaos expert. So in addition, certainly they kick things off. Right. In addition to everyone knows oil and gas are flowing, going through straight to Hormuz and Persian Gulf, which is the always the headline commodity sector that, that everyone talks about in the region. You also have things like outbound fertilizers coming out of the region. You have outbound aluminum being produced by Emirates Global Aluminum and Kwataloum and Alba Aluminum. Bahrain. You have inbound raw materials for the aluminum production Lumina that goes into aluminum production that needs to flow in. You have containerized goods. Right. You have inbound grains going into the Persian Gulf. So there's a lot more than just. And gas that's affected when there's a problem in the region. Right now we're seeing, you know, our world that's Heavy on metals, of course, is being affected by the inability for Gulf aluminum producers to be able to ship aluminum out, moving out of the Gulf. So that's already created a spike in global aluminum markets and there, there's a shift at the moment going on. I think Emirates Global Aluminum was the one that said they're going to start fulfilling orders with aluminum stockpiles that they have at other parts of the world. So we're starting to see an effect on the markets that we're involved in. Of course, overall diesel in the United States jumped significantly over the past couple of days. So we're going to see that trickle down effect coming into the world of our inland logistics in North America, barge freight on the river system, truck freight, rail freight, where we're going to start seeing, potentially start seeing fuel surcharge clauses kick into effect as diesel starts to move up.
- [08:18]
Joe Weisenthal
And then so talk to us about the insurance components because there's the obvious. Yeah. There's the sort of reality of moving goods and then there's the question of can you get these shipments insured?
- [08:28]
Tracy Alloway
Well, can I just say, I don't understand insurance where like you have a war risk insurance policy and then something happens and the insurers are like actually we're going to cancel all the war risk insurance.
- [08:38]
Joe Weisenthal
Yeah. Explain how this market works.
- [08:40]
Anton Posner
Yeah.
- [08:41]
Margot Brock
Well, war risk is an interesting component of your policy because depending upon where the policy is written and what the custom is, if it's a London policy, a US policy, you'll have different terms within your policy, but they all come with a short cancellation notice period on specifically the war risk component. And that cancellation term can be anywhere from say two to seven days I've heard, depending upon whether it's written on London or a US policy or so forth. And that's what's happened. Everyone put out the notice immediately upon the war. And now this week is when all those cancellation dates are hitting. So after that cancellation date you can rebuy war risk, but now you're going to buy at a significantly increased premium. So what I'm being told is the current market is that where traditionally your premium, which is assessed on the value, the declared value of your goods, that's what we're insuring against. So your policy in total, inclusive of your war risk maybe might be something around 0.0055% of value. Now to carve out just the add on for war risk, they're seeing offers coming anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5%.
- [10:11]
Joe Weisenthal
10x is a 30x increase in that premium.
- [10:16]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah.
- [10:16]
Margot Brock
So that's if you choose to have war risk. And then that will push back into the rest of the conversation that says what ships are actually transiting in war risk areas at this point? Because we're seeing the pivot. We're seeing. And we're seeing that, that market dropping off very steeply right now.
- [10:36]
Joe Weisenthal
Well, what types of goods would continue to flow logically or economically at these new levels? What is the pivot?
- [10:44]
Anton Posner
Yeah, Joe, I think a good answer to that question right off the bat is let's take the cargoes that have no choice.
- [10:50]
Joe Weisenthal
Okay.
- [10:50]
Anton Posner
One of our ocean freight team has a client and a ship currently loading in Saudi Arabia in the Gulf, loading dry bulk cargo. The ship's in port, it's loading the ship's P and I Club, the insurance group that ensures the ship is issued the notification of the cancellation on the ships. The ship side insurance, right. You've got two sides. You have the cargo insurance Margot was talking about in some detail. And then there's also the insurance on the ship. So that ship is loading, it's received the notice that their existing war risk coverage under their ship's PNI protection and indemnity policy has been canceled. They're going to need to renew it. The ship has to continue loading, has to eventually sail at some point. Right. When she will, who knows. But there's no choice but to re up under the higher insurance premium. That ship is already in the Gulf. It's already loaded cargo. So you have the cargo, the cargo interest. The shipper who owns the dry bulk goods aboard the ship going to need to have all risk cargo insurance on their cargo. And then the ship owner also needs to renew their P and I policy covering the ship. And there's no choice, ship's there. So now it's going to be, I think one of the terms when catching up with our, our ocean freight team earlier is a slugfest of who, who's going to pay. Margot and I, old professor at New York Maritime College of Maritime Law and Insurance with Jeffrey Weiss would have always said everything we're going to talk about this semester falls under the category of who pays, Right. Who's responsible to pay. Professor Weiss was famous for that, that who pays phrase. And it comes into play exactly these situations.
- [12:33]
Tracy Alloway
So just on this point, can I ask you to explain very simply, I guess, the ecosystem of insurance and shipping and this idea that, you know, you hear about things like the club insurers and then you have the reinsurers and there seem to be all these different layers. There's the insurer for the cargo. There's the insurer for the sh. Ship, as you laid out. And then there's this question of who's actually going to pay it because you have, I guess, a chain that exists between, you know, the charterers, the ship owners, the end buyers of the cargo. Can you just lay that out kind of very simply for us?
- [13:09]
Anton Posner
Yeah. And of course we're freight people, not insurance experts. And all going well. Without mentioning names, I'm working on connecting. Tracy and I discussed yesterday working on connecting somebody very key at one of the world leading P and I clubs to potentially.
- [13:26]
Tracy Alloway
Oh, now you've said it in public. So the pressure. The pressure's on.
- [13:30]
Public Representative
Oh yeah.
- [13:30]
Anton Posner
Thank you for notice. I'm not mentioning a gender or a name or anything that gives away anything other than that. So we'll see. Fingers crossed.
- [13:39]
Margot Brock
Their pronouns are they them?
- [13:41]
Anton Posner
Exactly.
- [13:42]
Joe Weisenthal
We've already. You've already gendered the ships.
- [13:44]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah.
- [13:46]
Joe Weisenthal
Which is. Sorry, it's a tangent. I was just reading something about how, you know, it's very, you know, the English doesn't have gendered nouns with the exception of ships. Anyway, sorry, keep going.
- [13:55]
Anton Posner
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, to make it. To break it down very simply, right, the ship owner carries protection and indemnity insurance, hull insurance, those policies that cover the ship and its engines and so forth, all of the physical attributes of the vessel and so forth. That's what the ship owner carries on it. Now in a contract of carriage, whether it's a charter party or a bill of lading, a liner bill of lading, that a limitation of liability to the cargo owner in that contract of carriage. The US law is covered by the Carriage of Goods by Seas Act COGSA, which typically carries a $500 per package or per ton limitation of liability. So the ship owner is only liable to a certain extent of value of the goods that the shipper is carrying on the ship. Now we flip over to the cargo owner side and the cargo owner, knowing that the ship owner only has a certain limitation of liability, the cargo owner will go out with the right guidance, will get all risks, cargo insurance, and that's to provide them the coverage for the value of the goods that they're carrying on board the ship over and above whatever the ship owner's limitation of liability is when there's a casualty and a loss. As a cargo owner, you want to be able to collect from your all risk cargo insurance policy and let them fight it out with the ship owner, not be stuck in arbitration in London. Or in Singapore or New York fighting it out later on. And then there's another type of insurance too. When you're chartering a ship as a ship, as a cargo interest, you get charters. Liability insurance is pretty common and that covers the shipper, the cargo interest from other liability elements. Let's say the ship has a casualty and people are killed or hurt, there's going to be lawsuits filed against everyone involved in the ship. And charter's liability insurance covers the charter, the cargo interest liability as it relates to other damages or if the ship is damaged by their stevedores loading the ship or discharging the ship. So other things that can come into play there too. So I tried to lay it out as kind of clear as possible, but I know it's convoluted.
- [16:17]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts.
- [16:31]
Joe Weisenthal
Running a business means dealing with a lot of overly complicated Software. And most CRMs tend to follow the same pattern. They're packed with endless features you'll never use, interfaces that feel clunky, and teams end up spending way too much time just trying to find basic information. Today's sponsor, pipedrive is a simple CRM tool designed for small and medium businesses. Pipedrive brings you entire sales processes into one dashboard, giving you a crystal clear, complete view of sales processes and customer information. Designed to help teams stay in control and close more deals faster. It all centers around the visual sales pipeline, where you can see every deal, what stage it's in and what needs to happen next. Since everything is in one platform, pipedrive is designed to unite your team, keep track of sales tasks and stay on top of your leads. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive. Right now. You'll get a 30 day free trial, no credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.comsimpleCRM to get started. That's pipedrive.comsimpleCRm the thing about AI for
- [17:33]
IBM Representative
business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.
- [18:01]
Public Representative
IBM support for the show comes from public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called generated assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by
- [18:56]
Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services by ZeroHash Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete disclosures@public.com disclosures talk to us
- [19:15]
Joe Weisenthal
about the announcement from Trump that the US could get involved and be some sort of play in insurance role here. What can that do? Is that. And is that novel? Is that. Have you. Is there any precedent for anything like that?
- [19:28]
Anton Posner
Yeah, this, you know, this news just came out. The president will often say things that then need to be implemented by the bureaucrats. Right. So the mechanics of it are always complicated. There's precedent for US government agencies providing insurance. The Export Import bank, for example, offers trade credit insurance like let's take that for example. Right. As for Protection Indemnity P and I insurance on ships, I'm sure, although I don't have any specific instances, but I'm sure there's been precedent for that in history. So I don't think that that's too much of a stretch for the government to necessarily come in and offer some kind of safety net for ships to be able to get P and I insurance. What may be more complicated is Navy having US Navy or Coast Guard escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. That's not an easy task that was done. I think what was in the 1980s when we reflag tankers on put American flags on them to protect them from the Iran Iraq war. At the time we had Navy ships escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. But that is a expensive proposition. It's not perfect, right? Missiles can and attacks can get through. You're putting U.S. navy ships, you're taking Them out of circulation and out of deployment for other purposes and you're putting them very much in harm's way. That approach to the Strait of Hormuz, navigationally speaking, is delicate to say the least, and it can be very exposing.
- [20:56]
Tracy Alloway
What's it like actually sailing through the strait?
- [21:01]
Anton Posner
I have not sailed through the strait. Margot hasn't either. Right. Both of us were, both of us stayed a lot shoreside after I sailed through the Panama Canal on a navy tanker, which really was a fun top. We'd have to Google it with Tom Feene and Paul Sweeney one morning when looked like we were going to take over Panama the day before. Sorry, Martin.
- [21:20]
Tracy Alloway
Well, okay. Actually, this reminds me, just setting aside the insurance component. Do people want to be moving stuff through the Strait of Hormuz at the moment? I imagine if you're captaining or crewing a ship. I would love to captain a ship, by the way. But you wouldn't want to be in the strait at the moment. Right. There are human considerations beyond just how am I going to get compensation for the cargo or a lost vessel.
- [21:46]
Margot Brock
Obviously it's a logistical nightmare to get through there. Safety is a concern. Personnel. This morning a small container vessel, I think it was 1800 TEUs, 20 foot units, was hit with. They're saying an unknown projectile hit it above the water line, put the engine room on fire. They just abandoned ship. They pulled the whole crew off and abandoned ship. I mean, you don't even stay there to fight the fire, you just get out of there. So yeah, people don't want to be there. And if you are on the liquid side, petroleums, crude, you have a harder time avoiding going through that region because of what it is. Right. That's the source of a lot of our global oil. But other commodities, dry in large part, we can avoid it. So to Anton's comments, the aluminum sector has in large part shifted, deviated from that area for now. But in addition, ships are navigating away and it means a longer transit time, which means a more costly voyage. So it's less desirable. It does increase freight rates, but it's safer, your goods are safer. And when you start adding on these new war risk premiums, if you're going to take them, I'd venture to guess it's still cheaper to take the long way around now.
- [23:09]
Joe Weisenthal
So it's the kind of thing for certain liquids, there's no choice like it has to flow through there. It sounds like for some of these other things, aluminum, otherwise for now, either there's going to be some Long route or it's just that is not going to be a source. If we're talking about aluminum, there will just be less aluminum in the world or some existing source of aluminum will ramp up their production.
- [23:33]
Anton Posner
Right. Like take Emirates Global Aluminum, for example, Joe, that the United Arab Emirates have the luxury of having ports and the ability to potentially load ships on the Gulf of Oman side outside of the Persian Gulf. Right. So as Margo said, yeah, longer route, potentially not ideal. This is not where they typically load. One thing I haven't looked at is Emirates Global Aluminum shifting some of that aluminum loading to ports in the Gulf of Oman. So we're going to take a look, kind of take a look at that. But I wanted to say, you know, in Tracy's question about what a cruise can, you know, captains of ships thinking on this too. I'm going to take you back, Tracy, to a way to answer your question. Imagine two crazy people came up with a scheme to load a teddy bear in a container and then head into the Persian Gulf. Do you want to risk your life as a ship's crew, like for somebody's teddy bear, you know, stuck in the middle of a 20 foot container? Or are you getting off the ship and saying, yeah, I'm not risking my life for that. Right.
- [24:28]
Margot Brock
I was going to say as a side note, though, to that alternate plan on the Gulf of Oman, I was reading that they're reporting missiles and drones in the Gulf of Oman as well. So in addition to the Straits of
- [24:41]
Joe Weisenthal
Hormuz, by the way, listeners, it's helpful to pull up a map during some of these conversations because, yes, you can see very clearly Oman has the benefit by and large. I don't know exactly where their ports are on its coast, but yes, the Strait of Hormuz is less of an issue for them, whereas for the uae, they're right in it.
- [25:00]
Anton Posner
Yeah. Unless the Houthis start up again. Right. So the Houthis have been an interesting one and Margot and I were just talking about this out of the ahead of coming on. The Houthis have put the threat out there that they're going to restart attacks in the Red Sea and off the coast of Yemen and potentially significantly deter traffic from heading to the Suez Canal. But they haven't started any attacks yet. The threats out there already, you see container ships, container lines diverting ships to the Cape of Good Hope to round southern tip of Africa to avoid heading into the Red Sea in case the Houthis do start, start up with missiles and attacks and boarding ships again. But They've as of at least 15 minutes ago, before we get started this podcast, it's out there as a threat, but the Houthis haven't done anything yet. The threat in and of itself already causes reactions, though. Right?
- [25:51]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah, I remember. I think the big port in Oman is Salalah, and I only know this because I visited there once. But, like, it's pretty close to Yemen, right? Like, I don't, I don't think there have been any direct attacks, but certainly relatively close. This reminds me, though, have you seen any early signs of people doing maybe insurance arbitrage where, you know, like certain flags or certain jurisdictions or entities are willing to run the Hormuz in a way that I guess Western companies just aren't at the moment? Or is it too soon for that and too uncertain?
- [26:27]
Anton Posner
Yeah, I think too, too soon for that, Tracey. Not Hormuz. Right. We did see on the horror moose situation of Persian Gulf. Haven't seen that happening. There's some ships moving through, so it may be happening maybe with some of the very few ships that are moving through. But it may be a good anecdote to kind of bring up here was when we were dealing with, you know, a year or plus or so ago, when the Houthis were really, really ramping up their attacks, there was a lot of chatter about the fact that the Chinese had essentially the Chinese E Z Pass toll transponder to get past the Houthis. So we're seeing talk at that time of working with Chinese ship operators and Chinese ship owners that were more competitive because they could still send their ships through the Red Sea and into the Suez Canal. Whereas more Western operated vessels that could be tied to countries that were unfriendly to the Houthis had a really target on them. Right. So we're seeing some of that arbitrage a bit during the when the Houthis were in full swing.
- [27:46]
IBM Representative
So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.
- [28:14]
Public Representative
IBM support for the show comes from public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds, and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market and paid for by
- [29:09]
Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing member finra SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services by Xerohash Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete disclosures@public.com Disclosures Adobe Acrobat Studio your new foundation.
- [29:31]
Use PDF spaces to generate a presentation. Grab your docs, your permits, your moves.
- [29:37]
Anton Posner
AI levels up, your pitch gets it in a groove. Choose a template with your timeless cool. Come on now let's flex those two
- [29:45]
Public Representative
draft, design, deliver, make it sing.
- [29:47]
Anton Posner
AI builds the deck so you can build that thing. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn more@adobe.com do that with Acrobat One
- [29:58]
Joe Weisenthal
of the impressions that I get with when we have incidents such as this is that there's a certain non linearity or that like things really compound over time that you know, one day disruption is one thing, a two day disruption is another thing. But by the time it gets to 10 days or two weeks or a month, then it really is. It gets exponential. Like talk about, talk to us about the risks and how they compound the longer the war goes on or the longer the disruptions are in this particular part of the world.
- [30:30]
Margot Brock
Well, since is that the risk to.
- [30:32]
Joe Weisenthal
Yeah, yeah. Global supply chain.
- [30:34]
Margot Brock
Global supply chain.
- [30:35]
Joe Weisenthal
Is that risk supply chains for all of this stuff, the longer this goes on?
- [30:40]
Margot Brock
Well, I think we reflect back, we've lived it very recently in a non war situation. In just what we saw during the aftermath of COVID when shipping just. And I think we actually spoke then about this, shipping just grew out of control and we saw all the subsequent delays and that was really just because of system overuse, congestion and ultimately a bit of Failure because our system just wasn't big enough for as much as we were trying to ship during that period. That was when we had container ships and cargo ships stacked off the port of la. We had clients with steel coming in where they said you could be on anchor for four to six weeks waiting for your birth. What do you want to do? Then you start to have to look at the bottom line of your dollars and cents. And that's what we're going to see. Again, like anything, it just continues to back up. Right. So we have cargo on vessels that aren't getting where they need to be. If it does, it's at a significantly increased cost going forward. If you want to book your freight, the baseline, the start, the starting cost is going to be that much higher because of risk, because of increased sailing distances that you have to go. And once you start using up your assets for longer periods of time, supply and demand now capacity starts to shrink. So it really becomes quite the domino effect. And the longer it goes, the more out of whack our system gets. The prices go up and that's where we can talk about the short term is the price of the, of commodities. And that's where our jumping, jumping off point is. As we talk about oil and we're talking about aluminum and fertilizers and cements and all these raw materials or semi finished goods. But down the line we all start to feel it as we did in post Covid, because that effect does start to trickle into our retail as well.
- [32:57]
Joe Weisenthal
You know, this has the potential to be a disruption on the scale of COVID or like we talking about that ballpark, if this goes on long enough,
- [33:08]
Margot Brock
I think that's the wild card. How long does it go on for?
- [33:10]
Anton Posner
Yeah, there's going to be winners and losers. Right. In addition to the losers, also always winners too. Right. Going back to the Houthi mess, no one was more excited than chip fuel suppliers down in Southern Africa. Right. With all the ships moving through the area that needed to refuel in South African ports rather than in ports in the Red Sea and so forth. So, so supply chains shift and eventually start to set in. Is this going to your question, Joe? Right. Is this going to be at the scale of what we saw with COVID Boy, I hope not. I mean, Covid hit every, every part of the world, every port in the world had problems and so forth. So I think it would take quite a bit for it to get to that, that stage. But we're, but already, as I mentioned earlier, with the price of Diesel fuel in the US Jumping, that's already going to start hitting transport of local goods going from distribution centers to the local public supermarket here in Florida. So it's trickling down already. We're going to start seeing it. So Margo and I are bracing for the fuel surcharges coming up.
- [34:18]
Tracy Alloway
Yeah. This also reminds me, I think even before recent events, we were starting to see freight rates pick up a little bit in the US and some people were talking about a potential turn in the cycle. I imagine higher oil prices will eat into some of the industry's profits. But before this week's events, did it feel like we were starting to see a little bit of a turn?
- [34:45]
Anton Posner
Yeah, we just fairly recently working on 20, 26 barge contracts, particularly for northbound goods like steel, metals that are part of our typical business. Margot was on the front lines on that. And we didn't see much in the way of significant increases. Right. Where do I think for.
- [35:01]
Margot Brock
Okay, yeah, no, no routine increases. It was nothing terrible.
- [35:07]
Joe Weisenthal
Yeah. It seems like it's a lot on the trucking, the freight.
- [35:11]
Anton Posner
Yeah, Truck freight has been.
- [35:13]
Margot Brock
Yeah. Where things are more volatile. Trucking is so, so reactive to the market.
- [35:18]
Anton Posner
Much more liquid market. Right. With thousands of small carriers and owner operators and so forth. And then, you know, rail freight. Rail freight is the exact opposite of the truck freight market. From liquidity to monopolies. Let's not call them monopolies, actually.
- [35:34]
Joe Weisenthal
No, but we know in trucks that you have a down period and then thousands and thousands of owner operators will come out of the market and go out of business.
- [35:41]
Anton Posner
Right.
- [35:42]
Joe Weisenthal
And so supply swings down and up in trucking in a way that would be unimaginable in something like.
- [35:49]
Anton Posner
Right, exactly.
- [35:50]
Joe Weisenthal
For obvious reason.
- [35:51]
Anton Posner
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:53]
Tracy Alloway
So I know we've, we've said multiple times now that the wildcard is really the length and how long this goes on for. But are there any, I guess, proactive steps that you're taking in your own business to prepare for further disruption?
- [36:07]
Anton Posner
Good question.
- [36:08]
Margot Brock
Because where we fit into the, into the supply chain is that our clients are the traders. So we're managing their supply chain. What protective actions or course correctors they have in mind really will relate to their trading book, which is going to probably be sourcing in alternate locations as needed if you can't get your commodity out of the Middle east or an affected region. When we dial into domestic logistics here, North American Logistics, we will see everything continue to flow and we don't expect as much a disruption of capacity. The disruption will be prices. But we'll still be moving things and we will still see truck, rail, barge and you know ocean freight will be more of the swing item here on what are the lanes where the freight is moving.
- [37:09]
Tracy Alloway
Joe, did you ever hear about the story of the ships that were stuck in I think the Suez Canal for like years and years and years during the six Day War?
- [37:18]
Joe Weisenthal
No.
- [37:19]
Tracy Alloway
So the crews that were stuck on the ships like started their own postal service and like built their own little society. But it's a very interesting story. I certainly hope nothing like that happens this time around.
- [37:33]
Joe Weisenthal
Lots More is produced by Dashiell Bennett, Carmen Rodriguez and Kel Brooks.
- [37:38]
Tracy Alloway
Please rate, review and subscribe to Odd Lots and lots More on your favorite podcast platforms.
- [37:42]
Joe Weisenthal
And for even more beyond Lots more, go to bloomberg.comoddlots and chat with fellow listeners in our Discord Discord GG oddlots.
- [37:51]
Tracy Alloway
And don't forget that Bloomberg subscribers can listen to all of our podcasts absolutely ad free. All you have to do is find the Bloomberg Channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
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Anton Posner
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Margot Brock
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