Coconut oil: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Coconut oil comes mostly from the Philippines, Indonesia and India. Prices depend on palm tree yields after rains or typhoons, demand from soap, cosmetics and food, and the price of palm kernel oil, its close substitute.
Market price World Bank Pink Sheet: Coconut oil $/mt · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkCoconut oil and Fatty alcohols
Monthly changes 0.79 strong correlation 12-month changes 0.93 strong correlation Last 5 years 0.71 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Coconut oil ≈ 1.86 × (Fatty alcohols)0.92 R² 0.91 On this fit, a 10% higher fatty alcohols price goes with a 9.2% higher coconut oil price over the long run. Units: $/mt and US$/t.Chart: Coconut oil and Fatty alcohols 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: Coconut oil price against Fatty alcohols 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.Coconut oil is a lauric oil, the preferred feedstock for fatty alcohols used in detergents and shampoos. The proxy is the palm kernel oil price, a direct lauric rival, so the link is very close: monthly moves correlate at 0.79 and yearly moves at 0.93.
strong co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsPalm oil and its kernel oil compete with coconut oil in food and oleochemicals, and both grow in tropical Asia. Monthly moves correlate at 0.61 and yearly moves at 0.81.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMany surfactants for soaps and shampoos are made from coconut-derived fatty alcohols and acids. The surfactants index barely follows coconut oil, with monthly moves at minus 0.04 and yearly moves at 0.18, because petrochemical inputs and long contracts set most of its price.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsSplitting coconut oil into fatty acids or making biodiesel from it yields glycerine as a by-product. More oil processing means more glycerine, which tends to push its price down even when the oil price rises. Glycerine has no public price series here.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Coconut husks and shells are burned as fuel in driers and boilers and sold to industry. The biomass proxy is a US wood chips index, so the link is weak: monthly moves correlate at 0.13 and yearly moves at 0.15.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsThe Philippines blends coconut oil into diesel, and fuel demand for all vegetable oils lifts their prices together. The biodiesel proxy is the soybean oil price; monthly moves correlate at 0.47 and yearly moves at 0.66.
moderate 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.