Accuracy of forward freight agreements in forecasting future freight rates

Participants in the maritime industry place much interest in the Forward Freight Agreements (FFA/FFAs), being an indispensable tool for hedging shipping freight risk. Our article innovates by directly comparing the FFA predictions with their actual future settlement prices as well as by examining contracts going forward as far as next calendar year. We combine straightforward comparison measurements with cointegration analysis to test for the accuracy and efficiency of the FFA projections. We find that FFAs display limited usefulness in predicting future freights, only slightly superior than simple naive models. The shorter the contract period and the smaller the vessel the better the forecast. We also find FFAs being relatively good predictors of future market direction but missing the turning points of the market cycles.