Associate - Business Finance

Three exchanges chase container freight futures but the liquidity problem remains unsolved. Three competing exchanges - Euronext, CME and Shanghai - are launching container freight futures on rival indices, but the fragmentation that killed previous attempts at a liquid derivatives market for shipping remains the central unsolved problem. Three competing exchanges are now offering or preparing to launch futures contracts on container freight rates - but the simultaneous arrival of rival platforms and indices raises the prospect of fragmented liquidity rather than the deep, tradeable market the industry has lacked. Euronext is set to launch container freight futures in April 2026 settled against Xeneta's XSI-C Shipping Index, covering four trade lanes - Far East to northern Europe, Far East to US West Coast, northern Europe to Far East, and northern Europe to US East Coast - with five expiry cycles per year and cash settlement in US dollars. CME Group already lists futures linked to the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) across six routes, while the Shanghai Shipping Exchange offers derivatives referenced to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI), primarily serving Chinese market participants. The proliferation of platforms and indices is the central obstacle. Futures markets achieve utility only when enough buyers and sellers concentrate on a single contract to create continuous price discovery - a condition the dry bulk freight forward agreement (FFA) market took more than a decade to reach after its launch in the 1990s, and one it achieved only after the Baltic Exchange's indices became the dominant settlement benchmark. Container shipping's rate volatility - spot rates on key east-west lanes swung between roughly US$1,500 and US$14,000 per feu during the 2020-2023 cycle - provides the economic rationale for hedging, but three competing indices each drawing from different data pools risk splitting the liquidity that would make any single contract viable. The differences in underlying data are not trivial. Xeneta's XSI-C compiles daily spot rates from committed quotes reported by its shipper and forwarder customers - a methodology designed to capture contracted market behaviour. The Freightos Baltic Index aggregates rate data from freight forwarders and online booking platforms, weighting towards transactional spot prices. Subscribe. Subscribe for FREE and gain access to all its content. More than 5000+ articles.

Why Euronext chose the Xeneta index to power Euronext container freight futures. Discover why Euronext chose Xeneta's index to power container freight futures, and why accurate, independent data is critical for effective hedging. Erik Devetak March 25, 2026 When Euronext set out to launch container freight futures, a critical decision was which index to partner with because, in any futures market, the underlying index isn't just a reference number, it's the entire basis of the hedge. If the index drifts from physical market reality, slightly, or even temporarily, the futures contract stops doing its job. Traders are no longer hedging their actual exposure. They're taking on new risk. Erik Devetak, Chief Technology and Data Officer at Xeneta, explains: "Futures only work as a hedge in the financial market, if the data, represents the physical market. Futures really work only if the index represents what's going on in the market." This is why index selection is the foundational decision for any futures product. Get it wrong, and the entire instrument is built on sand. Get it right, and you have a tool that genuinely helps manage risk. What makes an index fit for futures Not all shipping indexes are created equal. For a futures contract to function as a true hedge, the underlying index needs to meet a high bar across several dimensions. Xeneta's Global Container Price Index by Compass (XSI-C) meets all of them. Timeliness An index that lags the market doesn't just reduce accuracy - it actively creates incentives for both parties to move from the index. "If the price of the market goes down and the index doesn't reflect that, the shipper has an incentive to go into the spot market. If the price goes up and the index doesn't reflect that, the carrier might have an incentive to sell capacity to someone who pays more." Erik Devetak Xeneta's data is not only timely, it's ahead of some other indexes. And crucially, its strong correlation with those other indexes over time, provides independent confirmation that the Xeneta data is both accurate and current. Market coverage and spread A meaningful index needs to represent the full market, not just the largest carriers, not just the largest shippers, and not just the most-traded lanes. Xeneta covers the complete spectrum: the world's largest carriers alongside smaller regional operators so it captures data that represents the true market, globally. "Really having all the carriers - we have small carriers that probably most of you haven't heard of, shipping in the intra-Asia region. And that makes us aware of the whole spread of the market." - Erik Devetak This breadth matters. An index that only reflects the behavior of the largest players will systematically misrepresent conditions for everyone else, and those misrepresentations compound when used as the basis for financial contracts. The right Instrument on the right lane Container freight has specific characteristics that earlier index products failed to capture properly. Xeneta was built around 40-foot containers, the standard unit of global container trade, on the exact lanes where index coverage previously didn't exist. "Xeneta, with its capacity to represent 40-foot containers on locations where there weren't indexes on 40-foot containers, with the capacity of having timely data, with the spread of the data it has, with the amount of data it collects: it really can represent the physical market." Erik Devetak This isn't a minor technical detail. A futures contract tied to the wrong instrument, or calibrated to a correlated-but-different trade lane, introduces risk. Bjorn Vang Jensen, Executive Advisor at Xeneta, has seen this problem firsthand: "We've all seen people trying to use an index that's correlated with a completely different geographical region to regulate a trade for which it is potentially not suitable." Independence and neutrality For an index to function as the foundation of a financial market, it must be perceived, and proven, to be neutral. No counterparty will accept a benchmark that originates from a participant with skin in the game. "Independence of indexes is absolutely crucial. It's very difficult for somebody to accept an index that comes directly, for example, from a carrier." Bjorn Vang Jensen Xeneta is an independent company. It has no commercial interest in freight rates moving in any particular direction. That independence is a prerequisite for the trust that a functioning futures market requires. The proof is already in the market Beyond the technical qualities of the index, there is a more fundamental form of validation: the physical market is already using it. Three of the top five container carriers in the world actively promote Xeneta indexes to their customers. Millions of containers are already moving on Xeneta-indexed contracts. Billions of dollars of annual freight spend is already benchmarked against Xeneta data; not because of a futures product, but because the industry independently concluded that Xeneta best represents market reality. "Every year we have more and more shippers and carriers putting money on index-linked contracts based on Xeneta data. So we know that we have an index that really represents the whole market of containers." Erik Devetak This is not a theoretical claim. It is commercial evidence, accumulated over years, that the index works. When Euronext partnered with Xeneta, it wasn't introducing a new benchmark to a skeptical market. It was building a financial layer on top of a benchmark the market had already chosen. "When Euronext partners with Xeneta, it partners with extremely good data quality, proven by the fact that people use these indexes, and also an existing network of people who are actively looking for something to manage their risk." Erik Devetak Why this matters for you If you are a shipper, carrier, treasurer, or risk manager considering container freight futures, the quality of the underlying index isn't an abstract concern. It determines whether your hedge actually works. A futures contract tied to an index that lags the market, covers the wrong geography, or fails to represent the full spread of participants will not reliably offset your exposure. You may think you're hedged. You're not. The Xeneta Shipping Index was chosen by Euronext because it meets the standard that a real futures market demands: timely, comprehensive, independently verified, and already trusted by the physical market it represents. That's the foundation on which effective hedging is built. Learn more about container freight futures powered by Xeneta Xeneta is the leading ocean freight rate benchmarking and market analytics platform. The Xeneta Shipping Index underpins container freight futures on Euronext, launching across four key trade lanes.