Top Shipping Stocks for Q1 2022

The shipping industry includes companies that transport cargo around the world, from grains to apparel to electronics to appliances. In spite of the term "shipping," these companies often transport commodities and merchandise by air, sea, and on land by truck or train. They also provide storage and other logistics. Some of the largest shipping companies in the world include A.P. Møller-Mærsk A/S (AMKBY) and Hapag-Lloyd AG (HPGLY). The shipping industry has a significant mismatch between supply and demand, caused by global supply chains that have been strained amid the pandemic. This has caused the price of shipping to rise dramatically.

In the past year, the shipping industry has underperformed the broader market. The benchmark Dow Jones U.S. Marine Transportation Index has provided a 1-year trailing total return of 13.5% compared with 23.0% for the Russell 1000 Index. These market performance numbers and all statistics in the tables below are as of Jan. 12, 2022.

Here are the top 3 shipping stocks with the best value, the fastest growth, and the most momentum, respectively.

Best Value Shipping Stocks

These are the shipping stocks with the lowest 12-month trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. Because profits can be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks, a low P/E ratio shows you’re paying less for each dollar of profit generated.

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• Navios Maritime Partners LP.: Navios Maritime Partners is a Greece-based company offering maritime freight transportation. It owns and operates a fleet of dry bulk and container vessels. On Nov. 10, the company reported results for Q3 2021, ended Sept. 30, 2021. Net income attributable to unitholders grew more than 23-fold year-over-year (YOY) as revenue more than tripled to record levels. The performance was driven primarily by substantial increases in time charter and voyage revenues from the company's dry cargo vessels operations.
• Danaos Corp.: Danaos is a Greece-based company that owns a fleet of large-size container ships. It charters is ships on long-term contracts at fixed rates to global liner companies.
• ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd.: ZIM Integrated Shipping Services is an Israel-based provider of seaborne transportation and logistics services. The company operates a fleet of vessels and offers multi-modal, cargo handling, tariff management, and other related services. For Q3 2021, ended Sept. 30, ZIM reported net income more than 10 times that of the prior year quarter as revenue more than tripled YOY. Revenue growth benefited from strong performance in revenues from containerized cargo, reflecting increases in freight rates as well as in carried volume, while net income for Q3 2021 included a $358 million tax expense.

Fastest Growing Shipping Stocks

These are the top shipping stocks as ranked by a growth model that scores companies based on a 50/50 weighting of their most recent quarterly YOY percentage revenue growth and their most recent quarterly YOY earnings-per-share (EPS) growth. Both sales and earnings are critical factors in the success of a company. Therefore ranking companies by only one growth metric makes a ranking susceptible to the accounting anomalies of that quarter (such as changes in tax law or restructuring costs) that may make one or the other figure unrepresentative of the business in general. Companies with quarterly EPS or revenue growth of over 2,500% were excluded as outliers.

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• Navios Maritime Partners LP.: See above for company description.
• ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd.: See above for company description.
• Costamare Inc.: Costamare is a Monaco-based holding company that owns containerships. The company charters its vessels to liner companies and provides marine transportation services worldwide. On Jan. 3, Costamare announced a quarterly dividend of $0.115 per common share for Q4 2021. The dividend is payable on Feb. 7 to shareholders of record as of Jan. 20, 2022. Costamare also declared dividends on several series of preferred shares.
  

Shipping Stocks With the Most Momentum

These are the shipping stocks that had the highest total return over the last 12 months.

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• Danaos Corp.: See above for company description.
• Golden Ocean Group Ltd.: Golden Ocean Group is a Norway-based shipping company registered in Bermuda. The company transports dry bulk cargoes including ores, coal, grains, and fertilizers. On Nov. 24, Golden Ocean group reported results for Q3 2021 ended Sept. 30, 2021. Net income nearly doubled to $195.4 million as total operating revenues rose more than a third. The company said the performance was largely due to high operating levels in the current "strong freight rate environment."
• Navios Maritime Partners LP.: See above for company description.

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