Pulses: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Pulses, such as chickpeas, lentils and pigeon peas, depend on rains, harvests in India, Canada and Australia, and Indian import duties and stock limits. The series is a US dry bean index proxy, not an Indian market price.
Proxy US producer price index: dry pinto beans index, BLS base period · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for pulses 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 linkPulses and Wheat
Monthly changes -0.03 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.16 little or none correlation Last 5 years 0.03 monthly changes Lead or lag +6 mo Wheat tends to lead by 6 months (r 0.17) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Pulses ≈ 13.1 × (Wheat)0.58 R² 0.34 On this fit, a 10% higher wheat price goes with a 5.7% higher pulses price over the long run. Units: index, BLS base period and $/mt.Chart: Pulses and Wheat 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: Pulses price against Wheat 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.In India, chickpeas and lentils compete with wheat for winter land, and government support prices for wheat shift this choice. The US bean proxy shows no link with wheat: monthly moves correlate at minus 0.03 and yearly moves at 0.16.
little or none co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsSoybeans and dry beans compete for land in the United States and Canada, and both are protein crops. Monthly moves correlate at 0.06 and yearly moves at 0.29, since bean prices follow their own small markets.
little or none co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsGroundnuts and pulses are both rain-fed legumes grown on the same Indian and African land. The proxy follows groundnuts better than other crops: monthly moves correlate at 0.25 and yearly moves at 0.56.
weak co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsDiesel for farm machines and transport is a cost, though pulses need little fertiliser since they fix their own nitrogen. Monthly moves correlate at 0.12 and yearly moves at 0.21.
little or none co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsPulses compete poorly with weeds, so herbicides are an important input. The US index shows little link with the bean proxy: monthly moves correlate at 0.07 and yearly moves at 0.12.
little or none co-movement month to month · 248 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.