The nine pages

What is true about this market on this data day: the mark, how old it is, and what that age lets you say. Print age, never fetch age — a monthly benchmark is not quoted as today's price.

Why the price sits where it does. The origin ladder, the spreads between grades and legs, and the drivers underneath them — every rung carrying its own source and its own print date.

The declared record on this commodity's HS codes: lanes cut from real declarations, the parties at both ends, and the unit values that were actually realised rather than quoted.

One book, two roles. Every buyer and every seller on this commodity — where they sit, which ports they work, and a stamp on each row saying where it came from.

Put a trade shape in — volume, origin, destination, incoterm, price — and the desk audits it against the record. Where there is no basis to judge it, it refuses rather than scores.

Who to call, and the reason for the call. A lane is gated on four legs — alive, named, priced, routed — and only a lane that passes all four reaches the board.

The cost stack end to end: FOB, freight, insurance, discharge, inland, duty. What the cargo lands at and what is left for you, with the source shown under every input.

The ocean leg: lane rates by vessel class or by box, transit times, port congestion, and the chokepoints between origin and destination.

Everything that is not the ocean leg: inland mode, gateways, rail and truck corridors, border crossings, and where a cargo actually stops moving.