Good summary article.
Back to pre-Covid rate levels. Spot rates, in particular, have already plunged
Two price resets
Occurred at the start of 2023 (Asia-Europe contracts)
Occurs in May (Asia-US contracts)
As noted, there is a lag effect. So let us see how the various container shipping entities (liner companies, ship-owning lessors, smaller shipping entities) actually navigate the sector changes.
As an example of a smaller shipping entity, there’s a Greek shipping company, Euroseas (ESEA) that owns about 16 small and medium-size container vessels. ESEA has traditionally operated in the used/2nd hand market for vessels. When the container market tightened sharply, and ESEA wanted to expand, the company was forced to order new vessels to expand their fleet. But, vessels, even smaller ones, take time to build.
In prior years, ESEA would have likely kept the older vessel. But not, in late 2022/2023. ESEA have sold the vessel-
From their fleet list, http://www.euroseas.gr/fleet/fleet-employment.html
one can see why the vessel sale made sense. I mean, only the first pair of newbuilds have contracts (nice ones for the respective vessel size)