Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our first question is from the line of Jonathan Chappell with JP Morgan; please go ahead with your question.
Jonathan Chappell – JP Morgan
Thank you. Good afternoon guys.
Paul Stebbins
Hi, Jonathan.
Jonathan Chappell – JP Morgan
Paul, in your first slide, you talked about defending the marine market, defending you position in the marine market, I was just wondering if you could expand a little bit on that. I haven't had a chance to run the volume information that Ira just gave us in the model, so curious about the margins and how you are defending margin versus volumes in what is a weak market?
Paul Stebbins
Sure. Well, I think as you saw with – in Ira's comments, there was a $0.90 sequential decline quarter to quarter on the overall blended basis.. And when we talk about – so there was a little bit of pressure on margins but we saw some modest declines but again compared to historical levels we think we are doing pretty well. When we look at the overall sector trend in the shipping industry, certainly you follow transportation and you know what has been out there, it is certainly well publicized that shipping in general has been challenged on the back of a very difficult global operating environment. We have got a global economy that is stressed and global trade in general has been down. So there has been a lot of evidence in the press that the year-to-year demand destruction on the volume side is significant, so – and in some cases we've heard as much 30% drops year-over-year.
So I think that is just the reality we have to deal with. So when we think about defending our position, we are the premier player in the state, we have got a superior offering, we have tried to use that strength to not only diversify our mix of business but also stay very focused on the best in class customers that we think have got the ability to sustain a viable business model throughout this period. Certainly global trade is not going to stop, 80% of the worlds good do travel by ship. So I think it is a reality that shipping is going to be with us. So from our point of view, you can see that the primary focus has been risk management. So as good stewards of this franchise and with our primary asset being receivables, our primary and first and foremost focus is defending the franchise from a credit risk perspective. I think we have done a superb job of that. Frank and his team have been excellent.
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