Neptune Orient Lines, owner of Asia’s second-largest container company by capacity, gained the most two weeks in Singapore trading as higher freight rates and increased trade helped it report better-than-expected profit.

Neptune Orient rose 2.4%, set for the biggest advance since Oct. 6, to $2.11 as of 9:33 a.m. in Singapore. The stock was the best performer on the Straits Times Index.

 

The Singapore-based shipping line’s container volume increased 12% from a year earlier as rising consumer confidence in the U.S. and Europe stokes demand for Asian-made goods, Neptune reported yesterday after the market closed. The company and larger rival Evergreen Group have both ordered vessels this year as lines rebound from industry-wide losses.

 

“Global trade is likely to remain firm next year and Neptune Orient will benefit from higher volumes and rates,” Alfred Low, an analyst at Philip Securities in Singapore, wrote in a note to investors today, raising his recommendation on the stock to “buy” from “hold.”

 

Neptune posted net income of US$282.3 million ($370.6 million) in the three months ended Sept. 17, compared with a US$138.9 million loss a year earlier. That beat the US$157 million average of three analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales jumped 55% to US$2.4 billion.

 

The company reiterated that it expects to make a full-year profit. It reported the first annual loss in seven years in 2009 as the global recession and overcapacity in the global fleet drove freight rates down.