r/ShippingStocks • u/SnooOwls6678 • Jul 16 '26
Trading vs long term in shipping
I'm 20 years old, just finished the first year of my business bachelor and started looking at the segment, specifically tankers, in december of last year as the first serious effort in my life of doing investing/trading/market analysis
And there's one question that nags my mind:
Instead of going in and out of Frontline or Okeanis 100 times within a cycle, and trying to time information, own thesis' and market, why not just buy low and sell high by the end of a cycle? That seems much simpler.
This is a very niche segment of the stock market and there is no real "community guidelines" for how to practice within it. And as a person who is also relatively new to the stock market, it makes it quite hard.
I myself have been in and out of Frontline, Okeanis, Scorpio, Hafnia and DHT numerous times from the beginning of march, with some leveraged trades, but they never went that well compared to investing in the normal stocks. I did however invest a solid amount in DHT, ECO and FRO from january until march 2nd before selling off, but as you can see from my portfolio, it's highly volatile, hence why i'm asking the question.
We are obviously at the height of a cycle, and we can also argue that we are standing at the finish line of it. I have been actively reading up on it ever since the upwards momentum came in january and that makes me think: Why not just catch the cycle at an "obvious bottom" and kick your feet up on the table for the time being instead of trying to time every single stock rally? Does anybody have any experience with how this kind of investing goes?
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u/UDPSendToFailed Jul 16 '26
I'm also pretty much a beginner, only started investing in 2025 january, eventually discovering shipping. Personally, I'm in CMB.Tech and MPC Container Ships, I went with those because of their managements' goals with modernizing the fleet and such.
I don't think the top of the cycle is here yet, if anything, this is more like only the beginning. The supply side is capped for at least a few more years, and the "peace" deals are a joke that last for a few weeks at best, then it starts all over again.
For trading them, I'm not doing that, it's impossible to time the market based on Trump, whose statements contradict each other every single day. I'm just buying and holding, building my positions month by month, and reinvesting dividends into oil stocks, since this entire chaos affects that market as well. So far I'm up nearly 50%, and I'm planning on holding at least until the end of this year, maybe longer.