Learning Center
Structured modules connecting maritime shipping to consumer economics. Select your background to see recommended modules, or browse the full library.
Fundamentals
What Is Maritime Shipping and Why Does It Matter?
90% of global trade moves by sea. This module explains the basic mechanics: container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, and why the ocean is the invisible backbone of your daily life.
The Five Chokepoints That Control Global Trade
Suez, Panama, Hormuz, Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb. What they are, what flows through them, and what happens when they close.
Container Shipping 101: TEUs, Rates, and Routes
What a TEU is, how container rates work, major trade lanes, and the difference between spot and contract rates.
Oil Tankers and Energy Shipping Explained
VLCCs, Suezmax, Aframax: the tanker fleet hierarchy, how crude oil moves from wellhead to refinery, and why tanker rates matter for gasoline prices.
How Shipping Costs Become Consumer Prices
The transmission mechanism from ocean freight rates to your grocery bill. Three channels: direct transport costs, agricultural input costs, and import price inflation.
Economic Indicators
The Baltic Dry Index: A Leading Economic Indicator
Why a shipping index invented in 1985 still predicts economic activity. How BDI works, what it measures, and its limitations as a forecasting tool.
Reading the CPI: Food, Energy, and Core Inflation
How the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures inflation, which components are shipping-sensitive, and how to interpret monthly CPI releases.
FRED Data for Shipping Analysis
A practical guide to the Federal Reserve Economic Data system. Which series matter for shipping-price analysis, how to access them, and how to compute month-over-month changes.
Import Price Indices and Trade Balance Data
How import prices are measured, what drives them, and how to use trade balance data to assess shipping demand.
Producer Price Index: The Wholesale Signal
PPI measures price changes before they reach consumers. How to use PPI data to forecast retail price movements 30-60 days ahead.
Commodity Markets
Crude Oil Markets: WTI vs Brent and What They Mean
Two benchmarks, two stories. Why WTI and Brent diverge, what the spread tells you, and how to read oil futures curves.
Natural Gas and LNG: The Hormuz Connection
Qatar is the world's largest LNG exporter and all of it transits Hormuz. How LNG markets work and why disruptions cascade into electricity and heating costs.
Agricultural Commodities and Shipping Routes
Wheat from the Black Sea, coffee from Brazil, soybeans from Argentina. How agricultural trade routes create price sensitivity to maritime disruptions.
Shipping Stocks and ETFs as Market Signals
BDRY, ZIM, SBLK, MATX, Maersk. How shipping equities respond to freight rate changes and what they signal about the broader economy.
Freight Futures and Forward Freight Agreements
How the freight derivatives market works, what FFAs reveal about rate expectations, and why the FBX index matters for container shipping forecasts.
Geopolitics
The Strait of Hormuz: Geography, Politics, and Oil
21 miles wide, 20% of global oil. The history of Hormuz tensions, Iran's strategic leverage, and why every crisis here rewrites energy prices.
Red Sea and Houthi Disruptions: Timeline and Impact
From November 2023 to the 2026 partial recovery. A data-driven timeline of the Red Sea shipping crisis and its measurable impact on trade costs and consumer prices.
The Panama Canal and Climate Risk
Drought, Gatun Lake levels, transit restrictions. How climate change is turning the Panama Canal from a reliable shortcut into a variable-capacity chokepoint.
US-China Trade War and Tariff Impacts on Shipping
From 10% to 55%: how escalating tariffs reshape trade flows, container booking patterns, and the final cost of imported goods.
Sanctions, Insurance, and Shipping: How Financial Tools Become Trade Weapons
Lloyd's war-risk lists, OFAC sanctions, P&I club exclusions. How the financial infrastructure of shipping becomes a tool of geopolitical leverage.
Data & Methodology
Understanding AIS Data: What Vessel Tracking Reveals
Automatic Identification System data is the foundation of maritime intelligence. How it works, what it captures, its limitations, and how to interpret vessel position data.
Correlation vs Causation in Shipping-Price Analysis
When shipping rates rise and prices follow, is it cause or coincidence? Statistical methods for establishing (or failing to establish) causal relationships in noisy economic data.
How Risk and Route Indices Are Built
Full technical documentation of the Route Disruption Index, Household Fuel Risk Index, and Chokepoint Severity Scores. Formulas, weights, data sources, and limitations.
Time Lags in Supply Chain Price Transmission
Why a shipping disruption today takes 30 to 120 days to reach your checkout counter. The mechanics of lag, by product category and supply chain length.
Using GDELT for Geopolitical Event Detection
How the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone monitors shipping-relevant news in real-time, and how to use tone scores as sentiment indicators.
Practical Application
How to Read a Shipping Disruption Alert
When Risk and Route issues a Shelf Signal, what should you do? A practical guide to interpreting alerts and taking action.
Hedging Consumer Price Exposure with Commodities
Can you protect your portfolio — or your household budget — from shipping-driven price increases? A realistic assessment of hedging strategies for retail and institutional investors.
Import Cost Forecasting for Small Businesses
If you import goods from Asia, Europe, or the Middle East, how do you forecast landed costs during a maritime crisis? Practical frameworks using freely available data.
Writing About Shipping and Prices: A Guide for Journalists
Common mistakes, best data sources, how to avoid false precision, and how to explain complex shipping economics to a general audience.
Building Your Own Shipping-Price Dashboard
A technical tutorial: pulling data from FRED, yfinance, and GDELT to build a basic shipping-to-consumer-price monitoring tool. Python code included.
Historical Case Studies
Case Study: The Ever Given and the 2021 Suez Blockage
Six days in March 2021 that blocked 12% of global trade. What happened to prices, how fast the effects transmitted, and what we learned about chokepoint fragility.
Case Study: The 2022 Energy Shock and Shipping Costs
Russia's invasion of Ukraine didn't just disrupt oil. It rewrote container rates, rerouted grain shipments, and exposed how deeply shipping costs embed in inflation.
Case Study: The 2020 COVID Supply Chain Crisis
Container rates went from $1,500 to $20,000. Port congestion lasted 18 months. How a pandemic created the worst supply chain crisis in modern history and what prices did in response.
Case Study: The 1973 Oil Embargo and the Original Hormuz Crisis
The historical precedent for today's Hormuz disruption. What happened in 1973, how prices responded, and what parallels (and differences) exist with 2026.
Case Study: The 2023-24 Panama Canal Drought
When climate meets commerce. How record-low water levels in Gatun Lake forced transit restrictions that rippled through global supply chains.