Freight and Fortune

“Both sides can be right,” said James Lightbourn, a former ship broker with experience managing hundreds of vessels who writes about maritime issues. He said the Jones Act waiver does …

Today one may forget, but the U.S. maritime sector has a proud history of American private-sector companies that revolutionized the way the world uses the ocean. 1807 | Steam Navigation …

The U.S. maritime industry’s unprecedented Jones Act waiver is testing the century-old U.S. cabotage law. The Jones Act is a U.S. cabotage law requiring vessels to be U.S.-flagged (and thus …

The DHT Puma and its web of commercial contracts is a complex case study on how skyrocketing supertanker rates after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran (February 28, 2026) produced …

The interest rate margins for shipowners borrowing money from banks, funds, and leasing houses have decreased by as much 1.5-2.0% in recent years. Great news for shipowners who are already …

The international shipping market runs on U.S. dollars — even if none of the companies involved in a voyage are American — reminding us daily of the fact that the …

At the one-day TradeWinds Shipowners Forum on May 5, participants will assess the energy shipping outlook and delve into the debates driving U.S. policy forward. The day begins at 10am …

In March 2026, the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) published a study on U.S. national maritime strategy. America’s privately-owned international fleet has fallen from 850 ships in 1980 to fewer …

This year’s CMA Annual Meeting Lunch on April 23 in Darien, Connecticut features Keynote Speaker Joshua M. Shapiro, President & CEO of Liberty Maritime Corporation, the New York-based commercial shipping …

On March 18, the Trump administration issued a 60-day Jones Act waiver, allowing foreign-flagged ships to carry goods between U.S. ports, in response to the Iran war and the effective …

On Tuesday, March 10, I sat down with panelists Morten Arntzen (Macquarie Bank), Kevin Kennedy (Good Ground Advisors), Peter Shaerf (AMA Capital Partners LLC), Ted Young (Dorian LPG), and Jonathan …

Shipping and stocks have an on-again, off-again relationship. Lately, it’s in the “off-again” status, with many shipping companies leaving stock exchanges. These shipping companies typically depart when large private investors …

The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would temporarily relax a maritime law [The Jones Act] that restricts the way oil is shipped within the United States, as it …

Shipping investors often say they prefer “pure-play” companies—simple fleets, single vessel classes, no distractions. Yet the market almost never rewards those companies with valuations above their liquidation value. The result …

On February 16, German container line Hapag-Lloyd announced its $4.2 billion acquisition of Israeli container line Zim. Analysis on the deal, so far, centers on its consolidation effects on the …

Bloomberg’s February 15 article on the Jones Act immediately caught my eye with its title: “Gasoline Starved California is Turning to Fuel From the Bahamas”. Having grown up in the …

America’s Maritime Action Plan (the MAP)—the critical policy framework document of the April 2025 “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” executive order—finally came out on Friday, February 13, 2026 (three months after …

President Trump sounded pleased when the chief executive of a giant French logistics company [CMA CGM] came to the White House nearly a year ago to announce a large investment …

On February 2, Germany-based MPC Capital and Norway-based Storm Capital Management launched a new investment platform called MPC Storm Maritime Opportunities (“MSO”). MSO raised an initial $35 million from recognized …

Picture this: Senator Mark Kelly in the Oval Office looking over President Trump’s shoulder as he signs into law a bill for which Kelly is the lead sponsor. That image …

Publicly listed Frontline announced on 8 January that it has agreed to divest eight of its oldest VLCCs, built between 2015 and 2016, with delivery to the new owner scheduled …

The recent developments in Venezuela are unprecedented, to say the least. While the world’s attention focuses on the New York courtroom where former President Maduro and his wife are standing …

As we turn the page on 2025 in the shipping industry, I could reflect on many factors in a year-end post: disruptions from President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs (and their …

As I looked for interesting opportunities in this year’s frothy shipping market, I became attracted to the idea of investing in dry bulk freight rates (which I thought were low …

With “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus playing, moderator Christopher Ulfers and panelists Hugh Eden, Alan Ginsberg, Michael Braid, and I made our way onto the stage for our …

Once the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday passes, the frenzied, winter celebration-filled race towards the end of the calendar year begins. Amid the fun chaos, I try to carve out just a …

Shipping—often abstracted away into discussions of supply and demand, commodities, and finance—in fact involves very real vessels operated by very real people across the world’s oceans, where extremely dangerous situations …

I didn’t expect to hear business advice from a notoriously successful (and private) U.S. shipbuilder while listening to David Senra’s excellent podcast, featuring founder and CEO Todd Graves of Raising …

Tom Lemmon, London-based host focused on securitizations and credit ratings at ARC Risk Group, interviews James Lightbourn, shipping financier, founder of Cavalier Shipping, and author of Freight + Fortune, and …

The Marine Money Ship Finance Forum takes place in NYC on Thursday, November 20. The event features a panel, Dealmaking in the Jones Act & U.S. Flag, at 3:30pm. Christopher …

Christopher Vonheim, Norwegian host focused on business, ocean industries, investing, and start-ups, interviews James Lightbourn, shipping financier, founder of Cavalier Shipping, and author of Freight + Fortune on the shipping …

In March, French container line giant CMA CGM’s CEO Rodolphe Saade pledged to invest $20 billion in the U.S. maritime sector as he stood alongside President Trump in the Oval …

Last week had three standout developments in the effort to revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry: U.S. port fees | One year of waived fees for Chinese vessels from the U.S. …

Publicly listed shipping companies are often critiqued for their shares’ lack of liquidity, or trades in a single day. In the past year, the highest volume of public shipping company …

While there’s plenty of soul-searching underway among supporters of the world’s first proposed carbon tax, its one-year delay could ultimately lead to a more resilient decarbonization framework — and perhaps …

Trump officials go all out to block carbon tax on shipping October 16, 2025 Politico article excerpts, featuring Cavalier Shipping insights. Written by Sara Schonhardt in Washington, D.C.. The Trump …

The fixed income market — where investors purchase loan obligations of governments, companies, and other issuers as bonds — doesn’t attract nearly as much attention as the stock market, where …

With U.S. government port fees on Chinese-made freight vessels scheduled to go into effect next week, confusion is widespread among ocean carriers about whether the U.S. Trade Representative rules could …

The exclusive half-day seminar “From Risk To Return: Investing in Shipping’s Future”, hosted by Reed Smith and DNV, will be held on Wednesday, October 15 from 1:30-6pm. The event features …

One of the most tantalizing investment ideas in shipping is to take a public company private at a discount to net asset value (NAV). It’s like buying a dollar for …

On July 4, 2025, the “Big Beautiful Bill” became U.S. law. One provision from this jam-packed legislation could have a meaningful impact on the U.S. ship finance landscape: the permanent …

Technically speaking, VLCC stands for Very Large Crude Carrier, but with these vessels’ earnings near $100,000/day, it could also stand for Very Large Cash Cow. VLCCs, often referred to as …

The looming Maritime Environment Protection Committee vote on the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) draft Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October is getting harder to ignore. Skeptics now include top classification societies, …

In ship finance, just like in physics, every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. International shipping is a U.S. dollar denominated business, so America has an incredible amount of …

Something strange is happening in today’s container shipping market. Charter rates, i.e. costs to use vessels, and freight rates, i.e. costs to transport the goods aboard these vessels, historically move …

With the end of the summer holiday, students around the globe are returning to their classrooms. Ship finance generally isn’t a covered subject, so I am offering my own recommended …

Shipping companies with a widespread form of Chinese financing are rushing to find different funding sources to avoid potential multimillion-dollar fees for US port visits when new Trump administration rules …

There’s growing momentum behind the burgeoning Korean-American shipbuilding alliance, which even has its own acronym, MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again), created when negotiating U.S. trade deals by the Koreans—who …

Everywhere you look in the shipping sector, there are brokers: the intermediaries that keep one of the world's oldest, most fragmented industries functioning. Other sectors have gone digital (when was …

The 2004-built Jones Act qualified Suezmax tanker “the Alaskan Frontier” (193,049 deadweight tons / built at NASSCO in the USA) is back in action after being laid up at anchor …