Kaolin & clays: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Clays here exclude kaolin and cover ball clay, fire clay, bentonite, fuller's earth and common clay. Mined and sold locally, they serve bricks, tiles, drilling muds, cat litter, iron ore pellets and cement, so building and drilling activity set demand.
Proxy US producer price index: clay excluding kaolin index, BLS base period · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for kaolin & clays 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 linkKaolin & clays and Sand & gravel
Monthly changes 0.25 weak correlation 12-month changes 0.50 moderate correlation Last 5 years 0.36 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Kaolin & clays ≈ 4.78 × (Sand & gravel)0.62 R² 0.94 On this fit, a 10% higher sand & gravel price goes with a 6.1% higher kaolin & clays price over the long run. Units: index, BLS base period and index, BLS base period.Chart: Kaolin & clays and Sand & gravel 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: Kaolin & clays price against Sand & gravel 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.Brick, tile and pipe clays rise and fall with the same building activity that drives construction sand. The two indexes share a weak to moderate link, monthly moves at 0.25, yearly moves at 0.50 and 0.36 in the last five years, typical of local building materials.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsClay and shale supply the silica and alumina in cement kiln feed, and both products serve construction. The indexes link only weakly, monthly moves at 0.12 and yearly moves at 0.25, because most cement plants quarry their own clay rather than buying it.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsBentonite binds fine iron ore concentrate into pellets for blast furnaces and direct reduction. The index link is small, monthly moves at 0.10 and yearly moves at -0.20, because bentonite is sold on contracts while iron ore swings with Chinese steel demand.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsBentonite thickens water-based drilling muds and is used heavily in shale drilling. Even so, the clay index hardly follows oil prices, with monthly moves at 0.06, as bentonite demand depends on rig activity, which lags oil prices and forms only part of clay use.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsBall clay and feldspar are blended in tile, sanitaryware and tableware bodies. Ceramic production in India, China and Europe drives demand for both, and clusters such as Morbi buy them together.
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.