Vitamins: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Vitamins are made by chemical synthesis or fermentation in a few plants in China and Europe. Prices swing with outages, environmental closures and capacity cycles rather than input costs; animal feed is the largest buyer.
Proxy US PPI: vitamin, nutrient and hematinic preparations index (BLS base period =100) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for vitamins 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 linkVitamins and Antibiotic intermediates (6-APA, 7-ACA)
Monthly changes 0.38 weak correlation 12-month changes 0.57 moderate correlation Last 5 years 0.05 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Dec 2009 to Sep 2026 Vitamins ≈ 17.4 × (Antibiotic intermediates (6-APA, 7-ACA))0.41 R² 0.73 On this fit, a 10% higher Antibiotic intermediates (6-APA, 7-ACA) price goes with a 4.0% higher vitamins price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period =100) and index (BLS base period =100).Chart: Vitamins and Antibiotic intermediates (6-APA, 7-ACA) prices rebased to 100 at Dec 2009, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Dec 2009, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Vitamins price against Antibiotic intermediates (6-APA, 7-ACA) price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2009), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Vitamins and antibiotic intermediates are both made largely in Chinese fine chemical and fermentation parks, and feed with veterinary drugs reaches the same buyers. The US proxies move together weakly month to month, at 0.38, and moderately over a year, at 0.57.
weak co-movement month to month · 202 months Show chartsVitamins and amino acids are both added to animal feed premixes and are sold by overlapping firms. Feed output and Chinese supply curbs move both, though vitamin prices are more prone to sudden spikes after single plant outages.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Vitamin C, B2 and B12 are fermented from glucose made from maize. Feedstock is a minor cost, and the proxy shows no positive link: monthly moves correlate at -0.12 and yearly moves at -0.28, since outages dominate prices.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsVitamins A and E are synthesised through petrochemical intermediates such as citral and isophytol. Oil matters little against plant outages, and the proxy, a US index for vitamin preparations, shows no link with monthly moves at -0.01.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsPoultry and pig feed premixes use most vitamins A, D3 and E. Meat output and feed margins drive demand, but the proxy does not track chicken prices, with monthly moves correlating at -0.10, because supply shocks set vitamin prices.
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.