It is less than a year since George Procopiou lit up Posidonia with a series of seemingly outlandish and bullish comments about the state of the freight markets. “Buy anything that is a ship, I would say anything that floats, because almost everything is very cheap right now,” said the veteran Greek owner, to gales of laughter in Athens. They are not laughing now. Many owners are too busy chasing down new tonnage, especially dry bulk ships. “The market will come back on any type of vessel and you must be there,” argued the Dynacom and Dynagas principal.

Well, there you have it. This newspaper’s front page last week was filled with upbeat headlines such as “The cruise sector has begun 2017 with a bang”, “Sinopec launches ULCC venture” and “Dry bulk prices rising at ‘exponential speed’.” Even Procopiou might have been surprised to hear a panel member tell a conference in Athens last week that it was hard to concentrate because he had been up all night fighting off competition to buy a secondhand dry cargo vessel. It does indeed seem that a lot of people have taken the Dynagas man’s advice and are buying anything that floats (or even anything that nearly floats, judging by the warnings that have been issued about the poor physical condition of some ships).

But why this sudden exuberance, and is it justified?

The tanker market has been improving for quite a long time and the Chinese moving into ultra-large tankers is a unique event that deserves a separate analysis. The cruise ship sector has always trodden its own path, as it is partly a distinct consumer travel business. But dry bulk is at the heart of the traditional shipping world and is, temporarily at least, surfing a wave out of one of the most punishing market downturns ever seen.

The Baltic Freight Index is up 180% on this time last year at 1,100 points (although let’s remember it peaked at double this at the end of 2013 before halving again within a few weeks). The optimism that is sweeping the sector is based on several factors. The volume of global trade continues to trundle in an upwards direction but the arrival of US president Donald Trump has lit a fire under Wall Street equities, commodities and dry bulk shipping. Trump’s insistence that he wants to cut red tape, reduce taxes and rebuild US infrastructure has led investors to believe in a state-sponsored building boom that could be a bonanza for dry bulk shipping.

The other big change is internal. The dry cargo market has been primarily damaged by itself with overbuilding in the past. There is now a growing view that enough companies have disappeared, ships have been scrapped and new orders abandoned to allow balance to return to the supply side of the market. Most importantly, sentiment has turned, suddenly and dramatically. There is the possibility that Andrew Garcia’s GoodBulk could lead an initial public offering (IPO) renaissance in New York, which saw no shipping floats of any kind in the whole of 2016.

Meanwhile, secondhand vessel values are rising almost on an hourly basis, with owners beginning to question whether it would make more sense to move back into the newbuilding market. Certainly, there is no shortage of shipyards offering highly attractive prices to those wanting to order. It was sobering to see Greece’s Alassia NewShips Management buying a relatively new, 74,000-dwt bulker for less than $14m 10 months ago – and currently being linked with the purchase of a fairly similar ship at an estimated price of more than $22m.

The buying frenzy results partly from the relatively small pool of vessels being sold to a large and growing group of potential buyers. It is hugely welcome to see this optimism return but there are also obvious dangers that owners get panicked into overpaying and overbuilding, for fear of missing out on some new bonanza.

Let’s hope there is some caution and self-restraint alongside the enthusiasm. After all, like any good Greek philosopher, Procopiou was being provocative as much as prescriptive.