Nickel: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Nickel is traded on the LME and in Shanghai. Stainless steel takes most of it, with batteries the growth market. Indonesia's low-cost nickel pig iron and acid-leach plants have flooded supply in recent years, pushing prices down.
Market price World Bank Pink Sheet: Nickel $/mt · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkNickel and Steel
Monthly changes 0.04 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.31 weak correlation Last 5 years -0.25 monthly changes Lead or lag −2 mo Nickel tends to lead by 2 months (r 0.36) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Nickel ≈ 2,409 × (Steel)0.36 R² 0.08 On this fit, a 10% higher steel price goes with a 3.5% higher nickel price over the long run. Units: $/mt and index, BLS base period. The fit is loose, so treat the function as a rough guide.Chart: Nickel and Steel 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: Nickel price against Steel 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.Stainless steel is nickel's largest use, so stainless mill output in China and Indonesia drives demand. The comparison series is a US index for all steel mill products, mostly carbon steel, so monthly moves show no correlation (0.04) with nickel.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsNickel-rich NMC cathodes power long-range electric cars, making batteries nickel's growth market. The proxy is a US battery price index, which shows no monthly correlation (-0.02); battery prices fell for years while nickel swung, and cheaper LFP cells avoid nickel.
little or none co-movement month to month · 243 months Show chartsCobalt is mostly a by-product of copper in Congo and of nickel elsewhere, including Indonesian leach plants. More nickel output therefore brings more cobalt, whatever cobalt prices do. Cobalt has no free price series here.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.High-pressure acid leaching, the process behind Indonesia's battery nickel, dissolves laterite ore in sulphuric acid, making acid a key cost. The US acid index does not reflect Indonesian costs, so monthly correlation is near zero (-0.05).
little or none co-movement month to month · 225 months Show chartsCopper and nickel respond to the same industrial cycle, dollar and investor flows, and are sometimes mined together, as at Norilsk in Russia. Monthly moves correlate at 0.59 and yearly moves at 0.66, nickel's strongest link here.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsIndonesian nickel pig iron and matte plants run on captive coal-fired power, so coal sets much of their cost and so the floor price for nickel. Monthly moves correlate at 0.26 and yearly at 0.37, a real but partial cost link.
weak 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.