Future rates are rates found in our database that are associated with long-term contracts that begin in the future or are otherwise valid beyond the current day.Future Rates OverviewXeneta provides market trends and benchmarks based on current and historical freight rates, but of course there are always new freight contracts being signed by market players.In some cases, contracts negotiated near the present day may be scheduled to start a few weeks or months into the future, but they are still being signed today and reflect today's market.In other cases, long-term contracts that extend past the present day also reflect the near-present market because they tend to be stable compared to short-term contract rates.Using the Future Rates option, you can extend your view of the market on both Benchmarks and Trends graphs to see rates that are valid up to three months into the future.Understanding Future RatesIf there is a contracted rate that is valid for one year and began three months ago, it will be considered part of the future period because it extends nine months into the future.Similarly, if there is a recently signed contract that is set to take effect within a month, then its associated rate would too be part of the future period, since it extends beyond the current day.Any rates displayed within the future period will eventually become part of regular historical data.Think of it as a window into the very first contracts currently being signed for the near future.Viewing Future RatesTo view future rates in Xeneta:Go to the Benchmarks or Trends graph for your selected origin-destination pairClick on the end date part of the date range selector, and then click Show Futures in the opened dialogThe graph will be updated to show an additional three-month period into the future, indicated by a gray background.Setting the ScopeThe future rates you see on the graphs will depend on the selected Contracted Within option that limits the age of the aggregated contracts.In the example we'll cover below, we’ll explore a four-month period where three of those months are part of the future window, and take a look at the Shenzhen to Hamburg trade lane using three different Contracted Within filter settings for long-term contracts:All ContractsContracted Within Last 6 monthsContracted Within Last 3 monthsAll ContractsBy including all long-term contracts, we can see that the rates will continue their downward trend for contracts running beyond the current day.This view does not reveal very much because older long-term contracts tend to outnumber newer freshly-signed contracts.Contracted Within Last 6 MonthsIf we apply the Contracted Within filter to exclude all contracts older than 6 months, we get the following view of the market:We see that the average market rate will see quite a significant dip in the beginning of April, but should remain around the same level for the months that follow.Contracted Within Last 3 MonthsFinally, by looking only at contracts that were signed within the last 3 months, we get the "freshest" view of the ocean freigh market.This view also seems to confirm that the rates for the newest contracts on the market will drop more than 30% in April, and should stay around that level at least until the end of the month.You’ll notice that the line depicting the market rate disappears around the end of October. This is due to the fact that there simply aren't that many contracts that are at most three months old and that extend into the future for Xeneta to display.The conclusion we can draw here is that the market players entering contracts around the present day seem to be paying lower rates for shipments scheduled for the coming months.