SA Investing Forum: INSW top tanker stock pick for 2025
Jan. 08, 2025 3:36 PM ET
By: Anuron Mitra, SA News Editor
 Nearmap
More sanction related disruptions could be a "massive bull catalyst" for tanker stocks in 2025, according to Seeking Alpha investing group leader J Mintzmyer, who also chose International Seaways (NYSE: INSW) as his top pick for the year.
"For tankers, we believe there is an excellent supply setup and there is the potential for a lot of sanction related disruptions heading into 2025, which could be really helpful for rates and help tighten up that market quickly," Mintzmyer, investing group leader of Value Investor's Edge, said at the ' Top Stocks 2025' Seeking Alpha Investing Forum on Wednesday.
The oil tanker market was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020, as demand for gasoline plummeted amid widespread lockdowns across the globe.
"Folks weren't driving around as much, gasoline demand plummeted, OPEC+ decided 'hey we're going to respond to this market and cut our exports.' While OPEC's cutting all their exports, people aren't consuming the oil, that's not going to be good for the ships that transport the oil around the world," Mintzmyer said.
"So it was a very poor market. It was slowly starting to recover into 2022, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened. And that led to U.S. and Europe sanctions against Russian oil and diesel exports, which caused a lot of rerouting around the world. That suddenly changed the landscape and tankers had a very good year in 2022, 2023," he added.
Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump made the promise of further trade tariffs a cornerstone of his election campaign, and market participants are mulling over their possible effects on growth and inflation.
"We know from the previous experience with the Trump administration that they're very fond of tariffs and sanctions. And so if we see more sanctions and more enforcement in tankers, that could be a massive bull catalyst for 2025," Mintzmyer said.
He chose New York City-based International Seaways (NYSE: INSW) as his top tanker pick for 2025. The company has a market capitalization of $1.89B, and as of September 2024, operated a fleet of 76 wholly owned or lease financed and time chartered tankers. The stock was recently added to the S&P SmallCap 600 index. |
