Maersk nearly doubled its 2026 profit outlook, lifting full-year EBITDA guidance to $8–10 billion from $4.5–7 billion. The carrier that collects your ocean freight bills is now telling investors the elevated-rate environment holds through year-end.
Guidance as rate signal: Maersk’s profit guidance is a de facto forward rate forecast from the carrier with the clearest visibility into what shippers will actually pay in Q3 and Q4. The company tied the upgrade to “continued strong demand in the container market, particularly in the Far East,” and “a recent sustained increase in spot market rates,” reflecting its own booking pipeline rather than a rate index.
The reversal is stark. Just four months ago, Maersk was cutting around 1,000 corporate jobs and bracing for overcapacity. The new guidance raises the midpoint by $3.25B, an increase of 56%.
What is driving the spike: The Hormuz closure is the primary capacity shock. Maersk's Asia-Europe services have rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks to each sailing and pulling effective capacity out of those trades.
Port congestion at major South Asian hubs has added to the squeeze. Freightos reported that surging volumes are themselves reducing available capacity. Importers frontloading ahead of tariff increases pulled demand into the current window and extended what the routing disruption started.
The rate cluster as of this week:
Asia-US West Coast: $6,200/FEU, up 120% since mid-May (Freightos FBX)
Asia-US East Coast: $8,000/FEU, up 85% over six weeks (Freightos FBX)
Asia-North Europe: $4,900/FEU, up 70% since mid-May (Freightos FBX)
Drewry WCI composite: $4,166/FEU, a 22-month high
Why the spike may not last: Wall Street is split on how long the tightness holds. Some analysts argue the current run reflects importers pulling shipments forward ahead of tariffs, and that ocean freight futures already price in normalization after July.
Xeneta’s Peter Sand expects the earliest network recovery in mid-September. He also expects spot rates to keep climbing for at least four more weeks before the market peaks.
The timing hinges on Hormuz reopening. The agreement allows a 30-day window for minesweeping, which Sand cautions “may well take much longer," and until those operations finish, broad-scale transit cannot resume.
Maersk will report its full Q2 results in early August.
