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Volatility didn’t suddenly appear in ocean shipping. It didn’t start with the pandemic, geopolitical disruption, or the latest capacity swing. What changed is that the gap between plans and outcomes became impossible to ignore.
In ocean shipping, commitments are made early. Rates are set. Budgets are approved. Service expectations are agreed.
Then the market moves — after decisions are already locked in.
By the time the impact shows up, it’s too late to change the outcome. You’re left explaining it.
This isn’t a niche problem.
Across NYSHEX members, 71% say volatility is their number one challenge in managing ocean freight today.
That insight matters because volatility doesn’t show up all at once. It shows up first in assumptions — rates, budgets, and commitments that stop reflecting reality as markets move.
In volatile markets, decisions fail not because teams lack data — but because their assumptions stop updating.
A freight benchmark is the analytic layer that keeps those assumptions tethered to reality. It provides a continuously updating reference for cost expectations, contract structures, and exposure — allowing decisions to adjust as the market adjusts, not months later in execution.
That reality is what ultimately led us to develop our NYSHEX Freight Indices (NYFI).
The Problem Was Never a Lack of Rates
It was a lack of reality.
Volatility becomes most dangerous when decisions are anchored to assumptions that don’t update.
In ocean shipping, contracts, budgets, and service expectations are often locked in early — then expected to hold while markets move underneath them. Without a shared, trusted reference that reflects current conditions, adjustments arrive late and exposure compounds quietly.
A freight benchmark doesn’t eliminate volatility. It provides a common signal — a way to see how the market is moving before the impact shows up in execution or cost.
For years, the industry relied on freight rate indices that looked authoritative but struggled when markets became volatile.
They were typically:
- Built on quotes or submissions, not shipped cargo
- Slow to reflect real market movement
- Detached from how freight was actually moving
- Unsuitable as a foundation for contracts, budgeting, or risk management
They functioned in stable periods. They broke down when volatility mattered most.
Why Shipped Data Was Non-Negotiable
From the start, one principle was clear:
If a freight index doesn’t reflect the rates that are actually moving cargo, it cannot support real decisions.
That’s why NYFI was built exclusively on shipped rates — not offers, not intentions, not market commentary.
This wasn’t an academic distinction. It was a practical one.
Shipped data:
- Represents what actually cleared the market
- Captures real behavior, not optimism
- Responds faster to structural change
- Holds up under scrutiny from procurement, finance, carriers, and regulators
It also required building governance, transparency, and compliance from day one. Without trust, an index can’t be used for anything that matters — whether that’s benchmarking, contracting, or risk management.
Our Evolution Made This Inevitable
NYSHEX didn’t set out to create a freight index.
We began by addressing enforceability in ocean contracts. Then performance. Then accountability across execution.
Over time, a pattern became impossible to ignore:
Nearly every downstream problem — execution breakdowns, budget variance, service disputes — traced back to decisions made earlier, with incomplete or misleading signals.
You can’t performance-manage your way out of bad assumptions.
You can’t hedge what you don’t trust.
And you can’t plan through volatility without seeing it clearly.
The index wasn’t the product.
It was the missing layer. 
Volatility Is the Defining Threat
Ocean shipping wasn’t built for sustained volatility.
Plans assume stability. Markets do not.
As volatility persists, small changes compound quickly — separating expectations from reality and exposing cost, service, and credibility over time.
That’s why we stopped thinking about freight indices as reports and started treating them as infrastructure.
A shared utility the industry could rely on:
This Is Only the Beginning
Having a real pulse on ocean freight pricing doesn’t eliminate volatility. But without it, everything else becomes harder.
In the coming weeks, we’ll share more on:
- How freight rate signals evolve over time
- Why static views of the market create hidden exposure
- What it takes to make decisions before commitments are locked in
- How better intelligence changes outcomes across cost, service, and risk
Volatility isn’t going away.
The question is whether your decisions are built with that expectation — or made in spite of it.
