Preliminary estimates for January indicate that the index declined by 1.5 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after declining by 1 per cent in December. The largest contributors to the fall in January were declines in the prices of coking coal and iron ore. The prices of many rural commodities also fell, while the base metals subindex rose in the month. In Australian dollar terms, the index declined by 1.1 per cent in January.
Over the past year, the index has declined by around 10 per cent in SDR terms. The prices of gold, coal and iron ore have fallen over this period. The index has risen by 6 per cent in Australian dollar terms over the past year.
As indicated in previous releases, preliminary estimates for iron ore, coking coal and thermal coal export prices are being used for recent months, based on market information. Using spot prices for these commodities, the index declined by 2.5 per cent in January in SDR terms, to be 14.9 per cent lower over the past year.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
