Sand & gravel: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Construction sand and gravel are dug from pits or dredged from rivers close to cities, because transport soon outweighs their value. Prices follow regional building activity, permits and quarry access. In India, river sand mining limits push builders towards manufactured sand.
Price index US producer price index: construction sand and gravel mining index, BLS base period · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkSand & gravel and Crushed stone
Monthly changes 0.67 moderate correlation 12-month changes 0.90 strong correlation Last 5 years 0.70 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Sand & gravel ≈ 0.815 × (Crushed stone)1.05 R² 1.00 On this fit, a 10% higher crushed stone price goes with a 10.5% higher sand & gravel price over the long run. Units: index, BLS base period and index, BLS base period.Chart: Sand & gravel and Crushed stone 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: Sand & gravel price against Crushed stone 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.Crushed rock and manufactured sand compete with natural sand and gravel in concrete and road bases. The link is close, monthly moves at 0.67 and yearly moves at 0.90, partly by construction, since the crushed stone proxy index includes sand and gravel.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsConcrete combines sand, gravel and cement, so demand for all three follows construction. The indexes share monthly moves at 0.45 and yearly moves at 0.67, as producers of both raise list prices together when building is strong.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsBrick and tile clays are another locally sold building material that follows the construction cycle. The indexes link weakly to moderately, monthly moves at 0.25 and yearly moves at 0.50, as both reflect regional US building demand and producer costs.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsSilica sand for glass, foundries and fracking is a purer, higher-value product from different deposits. It does not follow building demand, so its price is separate from construction sand even though both are sand.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Loaders, dredgers and trucks run on diesel, the fuel tracked by this proxy. Yet the link is close to nil, yearly moves at -0.05, because aggregate producers set annual list prices and add fuel surcharges rather than changing base prices with diesel.
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.