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Around 80% of world trade moves by sea, and most of it through a handful of chokepoints — Hormuz, Suez, the Red Sea, Panama. When those routes are threatened, freight rates and delivery times rise, and goods inflation follows.

This index combines the Baltic Dry Index — the classic price of moving bulk cargo — with live coverage monitoring of chokepoint disruption, blockades and tariff escalation. When the freight feed is unavailable, the last known value is reused and clearly flagged as estimated.