# Cashew nuts: Correlation

Prices it moves with, and why

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/correlation/

Raw cashew nuts are grown mainly in West Africa, Vietnam and India. Most are shipped to Vietnam and India for shelling. Prices depend on crop size, export rules in Ivory Coast, shelling capacity and demand for snack kernels.
 No public price Cashew nuts has no public monthly price series: Traded on private contracts; no long public price index.

#### What its price moves with

 Commodity [Gn Groundnuts](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/groundnuts/)Substitute nut

Cheaper nuts like groundnuts compete with cashews in snacks and cooking, so a wide gap shifts demand at the margin. Groundnuts have a public price, but cashews do not, so no correlation is measured here.
 Not enough overlapping price history to measure.

 Chemical [Phe Phenol and acetone](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/phenol/)Substitute

Cashew nut shell liquid contains phenol-like compounds, used in brake linings, resins and coatings in place of petroleum-based phenol. High phenol prices make shell liquid more valuable to Indian processors.
 Not enough overlapping price history to measure.

 Energy [Bm Biomass](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_biomass/)By-product

After the liquid is taken out, the leftover shells are burned as fuel in processing factory boilers and sold to local industry, replacing wood or coal. Neither cashew nor shell fuel has a price series here.
 Not enough overlapping price history to measure.

 Energy [Tk Tankers, barges and fuel trucks](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_tankers/)Freight cost

Raw nuts are shipped from Africa to Asia for shelling, and kernels are then shipped to buyers worldwide, so container freight affects the price gap between raw nuts and kernels.
 Not enough overlapping price history to measure.

How 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.

## Other sections

- [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/index.md)
- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/overview/index.md)
- [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/extraction/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/production/index.md)
- [Stocks](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/stocks/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/cycles/index.md)
- [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/trading/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/movement/index.md)
- [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/criticality/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/cashew/links/index.md)