Selenium: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Selenium is a by-product of copper refining, recovered from anode slimes. Uses include electrolytic manganese production in China, glass decolourising, animal feed and fertiliser additives, pigments and solar cells, so prices reflect Chinese manganese output and copper refining.
No public price Selenium has no public monthly price series: Small by-product market priced privately; no public series.What its price moves with
Nearly all selenium comes from the anode slimes of copper electrorefineries, so supply follows copper refining, and producers cannot raise output when selenium prices rise. Price spikes are therefore common.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Selenium and tellurium come out of the same copper anode slimes, so their supply moves together, while their demand comes from quite different industries: solar panels for tellurium, metallurgy for selenium.
No public price for tellurium, so the link is explained in words only.Chinese electrolytic manganese plants add selenium dioxide to improve current efficiency, making them one of the largest selenium buyers. Manganese output and plant closures in China swing selenium demand, especially when Beijing tightens pollution rules.
No public price for manganese, so the link is explained in words only.Copper indium gallium selenide thin-film cells contain selenium, and selenium is added in some cadmium telluride panels. Solar remains a small selenium use today next to metallurgy and glass, but it is growing.
No public price for solar photovoltaics, so the link is explained in words only.Cadmium sulphoselenide pigments give bright reds and oranges to plastics and ceramics, a traditional selenium use now in decline because of rules restricting cadmium. Selenium has no price series, so this link is text only.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.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.