Wool: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Wool is mostly sold at auctions in Australia and New Zealand. Prices depend on sheep numbers, drought, fibre fineness and demand from Chinese and Italian mills, and they follow the wider economic cycle and currency rates.
Market price IMF global price of fine wool US cents/kg · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkWool and Cotton
Monthly changes 0.36 weak correlation 12-month changes 0.61 moderate correlation Last 5 years 0.22 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Wool ≈ 779.8 × (Cotton)0.59 R² 0.36 On this fit, a 10% higher cotton price goes with a 5.8% higher wool price over the long run. Units: US cents/kg and $/kg.Chart: Wool and Cotton 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: Wool price against Cotton 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.Cotton and wool compete for clothing and are spun by the same mills, so demand shifts between them as prices change. Monthly moves correlate at 0.36 and yearly moves at 0.61, also reflecting the shared textile cycle.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsPolyester and acrylic fibres replace wool in cheaper clothing and blends. The US polyester index barely tracks wool: monthly moves correlate at 0.05 and yearly moves at 0.37, as polyester follows oil.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsWool has no direct link to copper, but both depend on Chinese demand and the Australian dollar. Monthly moves correlate at 0.41, yearly moves at 0.72 and the last five years at 0.55, a common economic driver.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsRaw wool is greasy and must be scoured with detergents before spinning, so surfactants are a processing cost. They do not drive the wool price: monthly moves correlate at 0.03 and yearly moves at 0.25.
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.