Polybutadiene rubber: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Polybutadiene rubber is polymerised from butadiene and used in tyre treads and sidewalls, golf balls, and as the toughening phase in high-impact polystyrene and ABS. Butadiene sets most of its cost, so it moves with cracker economics.
Proxy US PPI: synthetic rubber index (BLS base period) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for polybutadiene rubber itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item.
What its price moves with
Selected linkPolybutadiene rubber and Butadiene
Monthly changes 0.36 weak correlation 12-month changes 0.66 moderate correlation Last 5 years 0.56 monthly changes Lead or lag +1 mo Butadiene tends to lead by 1 month (r 0.48) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Polybutadiene rubber ≈ 55.1 × (Butadiene)0.27 R² 0.21 On this fit, a 10% higher butadiene price goes with a 2.6% higher polybutadiene rubber price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period) and index (BLS base period). The fit is loose, so treat the function as a rough guide.Chart: Polybutadiene rubber and Butadiene prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Polybutadiene rubber price against Butadiene price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Butadiene is the only monomer, so polybutadiene is priced as a margin over it. The petrochemical proxy moves with the synthetic rubber proxy at 0.36 monthly and 0.66 yearly, and 0.56 over the last five years.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsNatural rubber competes with polybutadiene in tyre sidewalls and treads. TSR20 moves with the proxy at only 0.11 monthly and 0.46 yearly, since natural rubber follows Asian weather and smallholder supply.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsPolybutadiene is grafted into high-impact polystyrene and ABS to stop them cracking, so appliance and packaging demand matters. The resin proxy moves with the rubber proxy at 0.38 monthly and 0.60 yearly.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsSBR and polybutadiene are blended together in most tyres and made by the same producers. The two proxy series here are nearly identical, so the measured figures say little about this pair.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Tyres for new and existing vehicles are the main use. The vehicle price proxy does not move with the rubber proxy, 0.03 monthly, because car prices follow model cycles rather than rubber costs.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsHow to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.