Happy 2024: IDEX Polished Price Index is Rising
January 02, 24
(IDEX Online) - It's a new year, and there's a new direction of travel.
The IDEX Polished Price Index is finally on the increase after a long and steady decline from its post-Covid peak in March 2022.
The last two months of 2023 saw the first green shoots of recovery. In December, for the first time in almost two years we saw an increase in month-on-month prices for all sizes up to 5.0-cts.
So there is certainly room for optimism after a year blighted by a downturn in the global economy and weak consumer sentiment.
Without doubt 2023 was a very challenging year. From January to December the monthly Index average fell by 16 per cent, compared with 7.5 per cent during 2022.
It is now back where it was in 2020. It reached its highest point in over a decade in 2022, then nose-dived just as Russia invaded Ukraine.
It's hard to over-estimate the effect of the post-pandemic bounce as seen below, when the Index reached a 20-year high in 2022, or the sharpness of its subsequent decline, as the economy slowed.
Prices soared in January 2022 and even more so in February.
The combined effect of those increases significantly outweighed subsequent price drops throughout the rest of that year.
The Index climbed 1.21 per cent during December, maintaining the momentum from November, when it showed an increase of 1.06 per cent. That reverses a trend of decline that lasted almost two years. Prices were down 1.6 per cent in October.
Month-to-month prices were up 1.9 per cent in December, their first increase since March 2022. Prices had been slipping by around 3 per cent every month since July, but showed signs of recovery in November, when they were down by just 0.1 per cent.
Year-to-year prices are also showing signs of recovery after hitting a low point in October, down 21.6 per cent. They performed better in November (down 19.9 per cent) and more so in December (down 17.0 per cent).
Month-to-month prices for all sizes below rose during December (even a slight rise for for 4.0-cts). The biggest was increase was for 1.0-cts, up 2.9 per cent. That's a notable improvement on November, when prices slipped for all but 0.50-cts and 3.0-cts goods.
Year-to-year prices dropped among all sizes in December, but by less than the previous month. Smaller goods (0.50-cts to 1.5-cts) were down by around 20 per cent, while 3.0-cts to 5.0-cts averaged drops closer to 5 per cent.
Prices for all sizes shown increased during December after many months of decline.
