Lighting and displays: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
The proxy is a US lighting fixtures index. LED prices have fallen for years as chip efficiency improved, while fixtures still follow aluminium housings, electronics and labour. Gallium, indium and rare earths matter for chips, screens and phosphors.
Proxy US PPI: lighting fixtures index · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for lighting and displays 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 linkLighting and displays and Aluminium
Monthly changes -0.05 little or none correlation 12-month changes -0.01 little or none correlation Last 5 years -0.02 monthly changes Lead or lag +6 mo Aluminium tends to lead by 6 months (r 0.17) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Lighting and displays ≈ 28.6 × (Aluminium)0.24 R² 0.11 On this fit, a 10% higher aluminium price goes with a 2.3% higher lighting and displays price over the long run. Units: index and $/mt. The fit is loose, so treat the function as a rough guide.Chart: Lighting and displays and Aluminium 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: Lighting and displays price against Aluminium 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.LEDs are built on gallium nitride, and China produces almost all of the world's gallium, adding export control risk. A gallium squeeze affects chip costs, though gallium has no public price series here and chips are a small part of fixture prices.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.White LEDs and fluorescent lamps use rare-earth phosphors, such as yttrium and cerium compounds, to turn blue or ultraviolet light into white. Supply is concentrated in China, but quantities are small and there is no price series here.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.LED fixtures use aluminium housings to carry heat away from the chips. The link hardly shows in the data, with monthly moves correlating at -0.05, because fixture prices are set on catalogues and the electronics matter more.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMost lighting sits in homes and offices, and the electricity it saves is the main reason to switch to LEDs. Yearly moves correlate at 0.63 with the electricity proxy, mostly a shared US price cycle rather than a direct cost link.
little or none co-movement month to month · 248 months Show chartsEvery LED fixture contains a driver that converts mains power to low-voltage direct current. Yearly moves correlate at 0.70, a common driver from electrical equipment costs in US manufacturing. Driver quality also sets how long a fixture lasts.
weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsLED and display factories use speciality gases to grow and etch semiconductor layers. The proxy for these gases shows yearly moves correlating at 0.44 with the lighting index, a moderate link that mostly reflects shared US price trends, since gases are a small cost in a fixture.
little or none co-movement month to month · 207 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.