Study On Fluctuation Of The Price And Investment Timing Of Newbuilding Containerships

The shipping industry has always been a high-risky industry, it is also a capital-intensive industry. For liner companies, containerships are its main asset, and every ship investment activities will have a significant impact. Especially the financing of newbuilding is a huge investment, and it has a long payback period. What’s more, the newbuilding price constantly changing with shipping market freight fluctuation. The decision of investment is related to the survival of the enterprise,therefore, the research about the newbuilding price and investment timing of containership is very important.First this paper analyzes the characteristics of the newbuilding containerships market and the various factors affecting the newbuilding price of containerships which are secondhand price,time charter rates, order/fleet ratio, steel price and exchange rate. After that it uses the cointegration theory to analyze quantitatively the cointegration relationships of newbuilding ship price and the related factors which shows that these factors have the long-term stable relationships. Based on this the Vector Error Correction Model is set up which precisely reflects the dynamic relations between newbuilding price and the related factors.Based on the research of newbuilding price of containership, it analyzes the relations between newbuilding price and time charter rates and establishes the moving average investment timing model. Through history data simulation, we can see that the VECM model precisely reflects the rules of fluctuation of newbuilding price and other relative factors and the investment timing model also gives the best investment time for the companies.