As of 20 10 165438130, container freight index futures have not been launched in the world, so there is no hedging. However, as early as 201010/5, the first container freight swap transaction was reached in the world. In July, the London Clearing House SCFI settled the first transaction for the settlement standard; On August 2nd, the first container freight swap transaction in Asia was conducted in Singapore, so SCFI is the settlement standard. In other words, there is no container value futures at present, but there is already a freight swap transaction (similar to FFA) for SCFI.

Before the introduction of container freight swap, carriers and shippers generally determined freight rates by signing long-term transport service contracts, thus avoiding the risk of freight rate fluctuation. This is still the most important measure to avoid the risk of freight rate fluctuation. However, there are also some shortcomings: the freight goes up, the liner company does not give the shipper a position, the shipper has no position because of the low freight, the freight does not go out, and finally the freight is high; The freight rate has fallen, and the shipper has booked the space according to the contract price, but booked the space according to the market price, so the liner company can't receive the high freight rate. Therefore, the best way to avoid the risk of freight fluctuation is to introduce freight index futures.

As for the target index of freight index futures, it is likely to be SCFI instead of CCFI, because CCFI, as the target of index futures, has shortcomings in intuition, timeliness, sensitivity and objectivity. These shortcomings will not obviously affect users' judgment on the long-term market situation, but as a product of financial derivatives trading, it is far from meeting the requirements of long-term trading objectives in timeliness, accuracy, volatility and anti-manipulation. SCFI is specially designed to launch freight index derivatives.

However, the introduction of freight index futures has a long way to go. Despite the fact that container liner shipping giants such as Maersk, CMA and COSCO do not welcome freight index futures, it is still difficult to launch container freight swap transactions in China, not to mention freight index futures, which is full of difficulties in law, system, market environment and technology. At present, this matter is mainly led and promoted by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, and no one can decide when to break the cocoon into a butterfly.