Chinese holidays are probably the biggest story in the eastern Supramax trades, although they don’t seem to have subdued rates as much as they have activity with standard NoPac rounds on 58,000 dwt ships having remained largely unchanged over the past week in the US$ 7,000s. Ultramaxes are heard to be securing over US$ 8,000 on inter-Pac rounds from Singapore-Japan into SE Asia as avails tighten. Handysize activity has notably fallen off in recent days even as spot freight levels have come under the kinds of discounts that are not normally assumed to hit the small size sector with northbound rates ex-SE Asia to NoPac losing US$ 300-400 week-on-week.

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