IDEX Polished Price Index Dips in October
November 03, 25
(IDEX Online) - The IDEX Polished Price Index dipped during October, down 0.48 per cent compared with a loss of 2.08 per cent in September.
There was little day-to-day movement, aside from a brief drop around the 2nd of the month and a short-lived increase around the 29th.
The markets appear to have corrected themselves after a flurry of US tariff-related movements since April.
Prices spiked in late June, ahead of the scheduled (then delayed) imposition of reciprocal tariffs on 9 July.
They spiked again between 30 July and 7 August, when reciprocal tariffs actually came into force, and between 8 and 10 September, when additional tariffs were imposed on Indian imports.
In July the Index fell by 3.26 per cent and in August by 0.99 per cent.
The overall trend remains downwards, as it has been for the last three years. The Index was 88.13 at the end of September. It was 87.70 at the end of October, compared to its March 2022 post-Covid peak of 158.39.
Month-to-month prices fell more sharply during October than they did the previous month (down 2.2 per cent, compared to 1.9 per cent in September). These two months of negative growth follow modest positive growth in August and a dip in July (+0.3 per cent and -2.5 per cent respectively).
Month-to-month prices have risen only five times in the last 42 months, from March 2022.
Year-to-year prices were down yet again in October, after almost three years of uninterrupted losses. Prices fell 9.0 per cent during the month, compared with 8.3 per cent in August and 8.1 per cent in September. Before October, monthly losses had been easing slightly during the previous seven months.
Month-on-month prices in October largely mirrored those of September - the biggest losses were among smallest goods, with progressively better performances among larger goods. The one notable exception was a -0.6 per cent dip for 5.0-cts goods, compared with -4.2 per cent the previous month.
Year-on-year prices in October were broadly similar to those in the last two months, with the biggest drops among the smallest goods (0.50-cts, 1.0-cts). There were losses for all sizes shown below.
The overall trend remains downwards for most goods, although there were increases for 4.0-cts and 5.0-cts.
