IDEX Polished Price: Further Stability in March
April 01, 25
(IDEX Online) - The IDEX Polished Price Index remained largely stable during March. It lost 0.54 per cent, which is small compared to monthly losses of over 3 per cent last year. In February it was also stable (a marginal 0.02 per cent gain). In January it fell 1.32 per cent.
Prices have flattened somewhat after more than two years of overall decline. The Index closed the month at 94.37, which means prices are now lower than when it was launched (benchmarked at 100) in July 2004. The Index hit its lowest point for 13 years in May 2024 and the trend has been mostly downwards since then, albeit with a small bump in early 2024.
Month-to-month prices are still falling, but more gradually. In March they were down by just 0.2 per cent, after falls of 0.5 per cent in February and 1.1 per cent in January. Month-to-month prices rose fractionally in December (up 0.1 per cent), but the last increases before that were in December 2023 and January 2024.
Year-to-year prices were down 12.8 per cent in March, the 28th consecutive month of negative growth. The loss in March was slightly less than 13.4 per cent the previous month.
Prices for most sizes shown below fell slightly during March, with small gains in 0.5-cts and 2.0-cts. Among 3.0-cts and 4.0-cts there were losses, compared to gains in February. 1.0-cts were down 0.5 per cent in March compared to a 1.7 per cent fall in February.
Year-on-year price movements in March largely mirrored those of February, with losses among all sizes shown, particularly 0.5-cts and 1.0-cts. Losses for all sizes except 4.0-cts were slightly less than the previous month.
Year-to-year prices for almost all sizes shown below were down again in March, with the exception of 0.5-cts (+1.0 per cent) and 2.0-cts (+0.2 per cent).
