Primary Commodity Prices
First published: 1980
Brief summary
IMF monthly commodity-price data portal.
Article
The IMF Primary Commodity Prices system provides monthly price series for internationally traded commodities and aggregate commodity indices. It covers energy products, metals, agricultural raw materials, food, beverages and fertilisers.
Individual series are commonly expressed in US dollars using representative international market quotations. Composite indices combine related commodities using weights intended to represent their relative importance in international trade.
The data allow comparison of short-term volatility, seasonal behaviour and longer changes in commodity markets. Analysts can examine relationships among energy, metals and food prices or convert nominal series into real terms using an appropriate deflator.
Price series require attention to units, benchmark specifications, missing observations and revisions. A quoted commodity price represents a particular grade, location and contract convention and may not match prices paid by individual producers or consumers.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: IMF
- Source type: Data portal
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: IMF
- URL: https://www.imf.org/en/Research/commodity-prices