Today’s factoid: What is the Baltic Dry Index?
SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images News You may not have heard of the Baltic Dry Index, but you may soon be hearing a lot about it. The Index, maintained by the Baltic Exchange in London, measures the cost of shipping commodities like coal, iron ore, and wheat, and it’s at its highest point ever—7,007 as of last ...
SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images News
You may not have heard of the Baltic Dry Index, but you may soon be hearing a lot about it. The Index, maintained by the Baltic Exchange in London, measures the cost of shipping commodities like coal, iron ore, and wheat, and it’s at its highest point ever—7,007 as of last Friday. It now costs about $58,500 a day on average to hire a medium-sized ship, over twice what it cost just last year and nearly six times the price in 2005.
As usual with these types of things, one of the main factors is China, which is importing ever-greater amounts of coal and iron ore. Given what we know about China’s growth projections, it’s probably a safe bet that this is a trend that will continue into the near future. But eventually, new ships will flood the market, pushing prices back down.
More from Foreign Policy


No, the World Is Not Multipolar
The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.


America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.


America Can’t Stop China’s Rise
And it should stop trying.


The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky
The ethical calculations are less clear than you might think.