Molybdenum: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Molybdenum is used mainly to harden and protect steel. Much of it comes as a by-product of copper mines, so supply responds to copper rather than molybdenum prices, while demand follows alloy steel, oil and gas, and chemicals.
No public price Molybdenum has no public monthly price series: Priced in private trade assessments; no free public monthly series.What its price moves with
Big porphyry copper mines in Chile, the US and Peru recover molybdenite as a by-product, so copper mine plans largely decide molybdenum supply. When copper is strong and mines expand, the extra molybdenum can depress its price.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Molybdenum strengthens stainless, tool and high-strength steels and helps them resist corrosion, so alloy steel output drives most demand. China's steel and stainless sectors are the largest buyers, and Chinese mine supply is the other big swing factor.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Molybdenum steels are used for drill pipe, well casing and corrosion-resistant pipelines, so drilling booms in shale and offshore lift demand. Oil prices therefore feed molybdenum demand with a lag through upstream spending.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Hydrotreating catalysts that remove sulphur from fuels are made with cobalt-molybdenum or nickel-molybdenum, so cleaner fuel rules support molybdenum chemical demand, and spent catalyst is recycled as a supply source.
No public price for refining catalysts, so the link is explained in words only.In high-speed tool steels molybdenum and tungsten can partly replace each other, so a price spike in one shifts demand to the other. Both are dominated by Chinese supply and export policy, which ties their risk premiums together.
No public price for tungsten, so the link is explained in words only.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.