Dry-Bulk Losers: Excel, Eagle, DryShips

(Updated with stock prices at the market close.)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After a sharp weeklong rally, share prices in the volatile dry-bulk shipping sector retreated dramatically Thursday as the broader equities markets sold off and shipping rates, in the words of one analyst, "hit a wall."

The Baltic Dry Index, which tracks spot-market shipping rates across a range of dry-bulk vessel sizes, inched higher by 18 points Thursday, but it was the largest ships on the seas, the capesizes, that were experiencing the rate pressure. The average rate on the spot market for a capesize booking fell to $87,118 per day, down 1.6% from the prices being fetched on Wednesday, according to the Baltic Exchange, a London ship brokerage that administers the BDI.

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This was partly caused by a drop in the price of Chinese-made steel rebar, Omar Nokta, an analyst with the New York firm Dahlman Rose, wrote in a research note to clients Thursday.

Though freight voyage activity has remained brisk, Nokta said, rumors entered the market that BHP Billiton (BHP), the giant Australian mining company, would "back away" from booking more ships next week "after having secured 15 capesize cargoes already this week."

The BHP scuttlebutt, in turn, weighed on shipping futures, known as Forward Freight Assessments, or FFAs, which are increasingly used as a hedging instrument. The first-quarter 2010 FFA contract for capesize vessels dropped to $48,000 per day from $55,000 on Wednesday.

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