Massive Shipping Bottlenecks in California

Shipping bottlenecks in the wake of the lockdowns are not a surprise to me.

In fact, one of the world's leading owners and providers of containerships, Costamare, was one of the biggest winners in the EPJ Daily Alert portfolio recommendations in 2020.

As early as May of last year I wrote in the ALERT:

I expect strong price inflation on the other side of the lockdowns. The disruptions in supply and production across the economy are extreme.

Well, we are on the other side of the lockdowns. They are easing and I expect significant price inflation because of the massive amount of money that has been printed by the Federal Reserve over the last 12 months and because of supply bottlenecks throughout the economy.

The price inflation, as measured by government consumer price indexes is probably not more than a couple of months away.

Here is more from The Wall Street Journal on the shipping bottlenecks:

On Monday morning, 24 container ships...anchored off the coast [of southern California] waiting for space at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which keeps tabs on vessels and directs ship traffic.

The ships are carrying tens of thousands of boxes holding millions of dollars’ worth of washing machines, medical equipment, consumer electronics and other of the goods that make up global ocean trade, all of it idling in the waters in sight of docks that are jammed with still more containers.

One was on its 12th day of waiting in the seemingly unending queue. And the vessels keep coming.

Backups started building late last year as retailers and manufacturers tried to rebuild inventories that were depleted in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic...

The two ports together handle more than a third of U.S. container imports, and delays there are part of a global supply-chain mess that continues even after the ships are unloaded

-RW