Rubidium: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Rubidium has no mine of its own and is recovered from lepidolite and pollucite during lithium and cesium processing. Its small market covers atomic clocks, research, specialty glass and photocells, supplied in grams to kilograms on private quotes.
No public price Rubidium has no public monthly price series: Sold in grams by specialist suppliers; no public price series.What its price moves with
Lepidolite mined for lithium in China contains rubidium, and some processors now recover it. As lithium output from lepidolite grows, potential rubidium supply rises far faster than its small demand.
No public price for lithium, so the link is explained in words only.Rubidium and cesium are recovered together from pollucite and share uses in atomic clocks and research. Cesium is usually the main product, so rubidium supply depends on how much pollucite the cesium refiners choose to process.
No public price for caesium, so the link is explained in words only.Lithium from Chinese lepidolite largely feeds lithium iron phosphate batteries. When battery demand pushes lepidolite mining up, rubidium in the waste stream becomes more available, and when lithium prices fall those mines slow down.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Rubidium salts are sold mainly as research and laboratory chemicals and for atomic physics and quantum devices. These buyers pay for purity in small amounts, so prices are high per gram and vary widely between suppliers.
No public price for reagents and high-purity lab chemicals, 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.