Maersk Q3 2026: higher guidance, falling shares
Maersk is earning big money from price, and the market is betting price has peaked
Maersk raised its 2026 profit guidance for the third time this year on Thursday 5 November. It now expects underlying EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of $14.0–14.5bn. In August the range was $10.5–12.5bn. Underlying EBIT (operating profit) guidance rose to $8.0–8.5bn, from $4.5–6.5bn.
The shares fell anyway. They dropped about 11% after the European open, according to Investing.com, published via Yahoo Finance. The trigger was the quarter itself. Q3 EBITDA came in at $4.7bn. Analysts had expected $5.04bn.
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Our view is simple. The market is right to look past the headline. Maersk is making its money from price, not from moving more boxes. Price is the part of the business most exposed to what comes next: ships going back through Suez, new vessels arriving and congestion clearing. Forwarders should plan for a softer 2027 rate market, not a repeat of 2026.
What Maersk reported
The quarter was strong in absolute terms. Maersk’s release gives these group figures for Q3 2026:
- Revenue: $18.1bn, up 27% year on year.
- EBITDA: $4.7bn, up from $2.7bn.
- EBIT: $3.3bn, up from $1.3bn, an 18.1% margin.
Ocean, the shipping arm, made EBIT of $2.6bn. Maersk says its vessels ran at 96% utilisation, meaning almost every slot was used. Logistics & Services, the forwarding and contract logistics side, grew revenue 13% and lifted its EBIT margin to 5.8% from 5.5%. Terminals posted record revenue, with volumes up 2.6%. Terminal utilisation fell to 85% from 90% a year earlier.
Maersk also raised its free cash flow guidance and left capital spending plans unchanged at $10.0–11.0bn. The full-year outlook assumes global container volumes grow by about 4% in 2026. Maersk estimates global container demand grew 2–4% year on year in Q3.
CEO Vincent Clerc framed it as a demand story. “Despite continued geopolitical uncertainty and disruptions, global trade has remained remarkably resilient,” he said in the release. He added: “Demand is being driven not only by consumer spending, but increasingly by major investments in electrification”. He also cited energy and AI infrastructure.
Maersk said it was well placed, “with our vessel fleet operating at full capacity and demand exceeding available space on certain routes”.
Why the market did not buy it
Look at where the extra profit came from. Maersk says spot rates on the SCFI (Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, a weekly measure of spot prices out of China) averaged 46% higher than in the previous quarter. The Private Banker reports that freight rates more than doubled year on year. Over the same period, it reports, “Ocean volumes were largely unchanged from a year earlier.”
So Maersk’s ships carried roughly the same cargo and charged far more for it. That is a good quarter, but not a growth story.
There is a quieter signal in the terminals business too. Volumes rose 2.6%, but utilisation fell to 85% from 90%. Maersk is adding terminal capacity, including a new terminal at Suape in Brazil that started in September. Capacity growing faster than throughput is the opposite of a tight market.
Analysts said the same thing in plainer terms. Baird Maritime, citing an LSEG poll, reports that analysts blamed the profit miss on weaker-than-expected volumes and higher costs in Ocean. They saw the guidance upgrade as expected. LSEG’s full-year EBITDA consensus was $14.02bn, so the new range only caught up with what the market had already priced in.
Costs are rising too. Maersk’s release says the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz and widespread congestion pushed up bunker (ship fuel), network and container handling costs, and hurt schedule reliability. Port waiting times peaked at 16.6 hours in Q3, Maersk says. That is the highest since January 2023, driven by a severe typhoon season in Asia.
Maersk’s own sensitivity table makes the point clearest. For full-year 2026 EBIT:
- A $100 change per FFE (forty-foot equivalent, one standard 40ft container) in freight rates moves EBIT by $0.3bn.
- A 100,000 FFE change in volume moves it by $0.02bn.
- A $100 per tonne change in fuel price, after surcharges, moves it by $0.1bn.
On those numbers, a modest rate move matters far more than a large swing in volume. Investors know that. When the earnings rest on price and price looks stretched, a beat on guidance is not enough.
The shares are still up nearly 40% this year, according to The Private Banker. Thursday’s fall looks less like panic and more like investors taking money off the table near what they think is the top.
What happened last time
The speed of the upgrades tells its own story. When Maersk raised its guidance on 13 August, it set EBITDA at $10.5–12.5bn and EBIT at $4.5–6.5bn. Market expectations then, according to Newsquawk, were $8.69bn of EBITDA and $2.52bn of EBIT. Within three months, the EBITDA range has moved up again by $3.5bn at the low end.
Those upgrades did not come from a jump in trade. They came from disruption that took capacity out of the market. Hormuz is closed. Ports are congested. Ships are queuing. Each of those soaks up vessels and keeps rates high.
The counter-argument has been around for a while. A year ago, in November 2025, Drewry’s Container Forecaster said it “expects the supply–demand balance to weaken in the coming quarters”, especially if normal Suez Canal transits resumed (fibre2fashion, 14 November 2025). Disruption delayed that. It did not cancel it.
Now the pieces are starting to move. The Private Banker reports that some analysts expect “the congestion that has propped up rates to fade” as ships return to the shorter route and newbuild capacity arrives. It also reports that Maersk is gradually returning to Suez and that its ME1 India–Europe service is set to resume canal transits. Maersk itself has said such a return, together with new ships, would push rates lower, according to the same report.
Maersk is still adding capacity for the long term. It has ordered 26 dual-fuel vessels of 18,600 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) each, for delivery in 2029–2030.
What it means for forwarders and shippers
First, expect carriers to lean on full ships in negotiations. Clerc’s line about demand exceeding space “on certain routes” will turn up in sales talk during the coming tender season, when shippers set annual contract rates. It is accurate today. It may not be accurate by the time those contracts run.
Second, the risk sits with long fixed rates. If you agree a 12-month price based on Q3 or Q4 spot levels, you are paying for congestion that may clear within months. Shorter terms, index-linked contracts (rates that move with a published index), or clauses that reopen pricing if Suez routings return all shift some of that risk back to the carrier.
Third, watch the cost side. Higher fuel and handling costs from Hormuz and congestion are real, and carriers will try to recover them through surcharges. Ask for surcharges to be tied to a published fuel index, with a clear trigger to remove them.
Fourth, plan for patchy reliability while congestion lasts. Waiting times of 16.6 hours at the Q3 peak mean missed connections and rolled cargo. Build buffer time into delivery promises, especially on Asia routes hit by typhoons.
Fifth, look at Maersk’s own logistics arm. Its Logistics & Services revenue grew 13% with a better margin. Maersk is still pushing hard to sell end-to-end services directly to shippers. Forwarders competing for the same accounts should expect that pitch to sharpen, backed by a strong balance sheet.
Our prediction
We think 2026 will be the peak year of this cycle for Maersk’s earnings. As Suez routings resume and new tonnage lands, the rate premium that drove Q3 will shrink, and flat volumes will not make up the gap.
What would prove us wrong? A longer closure of Hormuz, a fresh shock that sends ships back around Africa, or demand running well ahead of Maersk’s own 4% growth assumption. Any of those would keep ships full and rates high into the spring. Watch weekly spot indices and Suez transit numbers through December. If spot rates on Asia–Europe hold their November levels into the new year while more ships use the canal, our view is wrong.
Our call: when Maersk gives its first 2027 guidance with its full-year results early next year, the underlying EBITDA range will sit below this year’s $14.0–14.5bn. We also expect 2027 annual contract rates on Asia–Europe and the transpacific, agreed in the first quarter of 2027, to settle below the spot levels carriers are quoting this November.
Sources
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