Groundnuts: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Groundnut prices depend on harvests in India, China, Nigeria, Argentina and the United States, monsoon rains, and demand for nuts, groundnut oil and meal. Trade is in shelled kernels for food, and quality grades matter.
Market price World Bank Pink Sheet: Groundnuts $/mt · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkGroundnuts and Soybeans
Monthly changes 0.10 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.39 weak correlation Last 5 years 0.25 monthly changes Lead or lag +3 mo Soybeans tends to lead by 3 months (r 0.16) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Groundnuts ≈ 25.8 × (Soybeans)0.66 R² 0.40 On this fit, a 10% higher soybeans price goes with a 6.5% higher groundnuts price over the long run. Units: $/mt and $/mt.Chart: Groundnuts and Soybeans 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: Groundnuts price against Soybeans 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.Groundnuts are crushed for oil and meal like soybeans, and some farmers choose between the two. But most traded groundnuts are eaten as food, so the link is loose: monthly moves correlate at only 0.10, rising to 0.39 for yearly moves.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsIn India, groundnut oil competes with cheaper palm and soybean oils, so a palm price fall can soften groundnut demand. The traded kernel price shows little of this: monthly moves correlate at 0.14 and yearly moves at 0.34.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsIn India and Africa, groundnuts and pulses are rain-fed legumes grown on the same plots and hit by the same monsoon. The pulses proxy is a US dry bean index; even so, yearly moves correlate at 0.56 and monthly moves at 0.25.
weak co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsSunflower oil is another premium cooking oil that competes with groundnut oil. The kernel price barely shows this: monthly moves correlate at 0.09 and yearly moves at 0.38, because the food nut market sets most of the value.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsDiesel and power for irrigation, shelling and transport are costs for growers. The diesel proxy shows almost no monthly link at 0.06 and yearly moves at 0.17, since groundnut prices are dominated by harvest size and rainfall.
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.