Dry Bulk Winners & Losers: DryShips

Excluding asset-impairment charges related to the sale of a capesize ship, Star Bulk post a third-quarter per-share profit of 12 cents, easily surpassing the Wall Street consensus target of a 1-cent-per-share profit.

Star Bulk has taken a conservative approach to chartering. It has fixed 100% of its fleet's operating days into charter contracts for the rest of 2009, and 80% for 2010. Nokta pointed out in a note to clients that Star Bulk has been able to rid itself of charterers who have been in financial trouble , replacing them with more "credit worthy counterparties, such as Cargill," the privately held grain distributor.

Still, investors sent Star Bulk's stock price down as much as 6% during the session. In the final hours of trading, the shares clawed back some of those losses, closing the day at $3.40, down 2.6%, on more than double the daily average volume.

Elsewhere, shares of Navios Maritime (NM) were perhaps the hardest hit, falling 4.6% to $5.84. Eagle Bulk Shipping (EGLE) retreated 1.5% to $5.75; and Safe Bulkers (SB) slipped 1% to $8.93.

Among the few names in positive territory: DryShips shares ended the session up 2.6%, at $6.35; Genco Shipping & Trading (GNK) finished up 1.8%, at $24.98; Excel Maritime (EXM) closed up 1.5%, at $7.34; and Diana Shipping (DSX) inched higher Tuesday, closing at $16.49, up 0.3%.

-- Written by Scott Eden in New York

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Scott Eden has covered business -- both large and small -- for more than a decade. Prior to joining TheStreet.com, he worked as a features reporter for Dealmaker and Trader Monthly magazines. Before that, he wrote for the Chicago Reader, that city's weekly paper. Early in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Dow Jones News Service. His reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Men's Journal, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and the Believer magazine, among other publications. He's also the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a nonfiction book about Notre Dame football fans and the business and politics of big-time college sports. He has degrees from Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.

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