Preliminary estimates for February indicate that the index declined by 1.3 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after declining by 1.6 per cent in January (revised). The largest contributors to the fall in February were declines in the prices of iron ore and coking coal, which was partially offset by an increase in the price of gold. The prices of many rural commodities rose, while the base metals subindex fell in the month. In Australian dollar terms, the index declined by 2.2 per cent in February.
Over the past year, the index has declined by around 12 per cent in SDR terms. The prices of most commodities in the index have fallen over this period. The index has risen by 1.8 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 2.3 per cent in February in SDR terms, to be 17.5 per cent lower over the past year.
Iron ore giveth and iron ore taketh away. The better news is this, in Australian dollar terms we’re some distance from a new low:
That’s good for export revenues but it’s still buying less, all things equal, from the rest of the world, as the terms of trade fall.
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.
