On Wednesday, Moody's Investors Service Report downgraded its outlook on rated shipping companies, saying that combined earnings would likely decline this year by 7 to 10 percent.
The New York-headquartered firm now considers the outlook for the sector to be negative despite rating it as stable in March with an anticipated low single figure drop in earnings overall.
Whilst tanker shipping remains stable, Moody's said that container shipping and dry bulk shipping remain beset by the problem of too many ships and too-slow growth in demand.
"Capacity is already high, and we expect supply growth will continue to outpace demand growth by more than 2% in 2016, supporting the negative outlook on the segment," the report read. "The existing supply-demand imbalance will persist over the coming 12 to 18 months."
Moody's expects the container shipping industry will be hampered by subdued demand for finished and semi-finished goods. Whilst dry bulk shipping - already suffering from the twin blows of declining commodity prices and an increase in capacity despite weak demand - will continue to deteriorate over the next few years, the credit rating specialist said.
The report may well dampen overall confidence levels in the shipping industry which rose slightly in the three months to May 2016, according to the May 2016 Shipping Confidence Survey from international accountant and shipping adviser Moore Stephens.
However, even then, economic and geopolitical uncertainty was uppermost in the thoughts of many of their respondents. "Overall world economic growth is still not moving concertedly in a positive direction," said one, "so that we have what might best be described as a patchy global economic recovery."
The Shipping Confidence Survey at the time noted that in common with Moody's reporting, a surfeit of tonnage and a paucity of scrapping were referenced by a number of respondents. One respondent in the survey noted: "Far too many newbuildings in the ultra-to-VLOC size range will be hitting the market in the next 12-to-18 months," while elsewhere it was noted that what is needed is, "strong scrapping, fewer dry newbuildings, stiffer regulations, better and more uniform control."
