No one predicted that the container industry would be doing this well, this quickly.

"We've been scratching our heads a lot, trying to figure out why ocean freight prices have climbed so high," commented Eytan Buchman, chief marketing officer of Freightos, on Wednesday.

The bullish view is that import demand will continue to surprise to the upside. Ocean rates evidence a U.S. economic rebound. COVID erased demand for some products and services, but increased demand for other products. Storefront sales won't recover, but e-commerce sales will offset storefront losses. Government support will counter shutdown fallout.

The bearish view is that the economic-fallout shoe has yet to drop. Demand for ocean container transport is being temporarily juiced by the tail end of waning government support, a switch to higher inventory levels — for both defensive and e-commerce reasons — and by bookings brought forward ahead of Chinese Golden Week (Oct. 1-7).

Another dip ahead? 

Panjiva, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, reported Wednesday that U.S. seaborne box imports hit an all-time monthly high in August.

The total came in at 2.71 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), up 5.9% year-on-year driven by a 14.3% surge from China.