Sorry, missed this one earlier. The RBA yesterday afternoon released its commodity price index for May, which registered another 1.0% fall in Aussie dollar terms – the fourth consecutive month of decline – and 1.1% fall in SDR terms – the fifth consecutive month of falls:
Preliminary estimates for May indicate that the index declined by 1.1 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after declining by 0.7 per cent in April (revised). The largest contributors to the fall in May were declines in the prices of iron ore and coking coal. The rural and base metals commodities subindices rose in the month. In Australian dollar terms, the index declined by 1.0 per cent in May.
Over the past year, the index has declined by 12.8 per cent in SDR terms, largely driven by declines in the prices of bulk commodities. The index has declined by 4.1 per cent in Australian dollar terms over the past year.
A chart showing the index in both AUD and SDR terms is shown below:
The SDR series is generally a pretty good guide to the terms of trade, suggesting that it will continue to come under pressure as the year progresses.
The RBA also updated its commodity weights, with iron ore now accounting for 32.7% of the index, and obviously accounting for much of the recent falls.
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