Syou should have ships. Then it would be easier to hoard lots of liquid gas for the winter, and heating oil too, if necessary. Or you could pick up all the goods that are currently stuck somewhere between China and Hamburg from the manufacturer yourself. Hapag-Lloyd does something like this professionally, and the brokers were able to see how attractive that is this week from the preliminary business figures: with its 248 ships, the Hamburg shipping company made an operating profit of 10 billion euros in the first half of the year. And she didn’t even have to transport more goods than in the previous year. Six million standard containers were transported again, but at 80 percent higher freight rates.
The shipping company has now increased its profit estimate for 2022 by 4.6 billion euros. An operating profit of 20 billion euros seems possible. Celebration day for the shareholders! Unfortunately, only 3.6 percent of the shares are in free float. The gains in the share price help the FAZ index, but not the selection indices of the German stock exchange, which requires at least ten percent freely tradable shares. The market value rose to 58 billion euros this week. Only seven Dax companies create more. At best, Biontech achieves such dizzying profit heights with its vaccine and Volkswagen, which, however, has to have millions and millions of cars produced by 600,000 employees.
Also this week many other companies had to struggle far more. Adidas, Fresenius and Fresenius Medical Care admitted that they could no longer reach their annual targets. As expected, Uniper’s state rescue will not be a joy for shareholders. The big tech companies in America were able to convince us of this. Especially Amazon. But even the online retail giant cannot match Hapag-Lloyd’s profit margins. After all, he increases the annual fee for Amazon Prime customers by 30 percent.
Oil companies have dramatically increased their profit margins
Freight rate cashiers can only smile wearily at this. At best, the oil companies can keep up. Bottom line, Shell made $18 billion in the second quarter! And on Friday, Exxon Mobil was in no way inferior to the Dutch-British oil multinational: $17.9 billion in net profit in the second quarter – the highest profit in the company’s long history. How long will this go well? After just the first quarter, the American President noted that Exxon was making “more money than God”. The oil companies have drastically increased their profit margins in the production of fuels.
You would have to have an oil refinery. Or at least a few cargo ships. But that’s the beauty of the stock market. With just a few euros you are at least a small part of the shipowner or oil multinational.
Or owners of Aston Martin, Louis Vuitton or Hermes. Because the business with luxury also works in the crisis. After all, the clientele doesn’t care whether potatoes or last-minute trips are being driven by inflation. The car manufacturers therefore prefer to use their scarce parts for the luxury class. After all, almost any price can be demanded.