Since this index is based on history, it is not available until about April 2005. The latest year available is 2003 at 402.0, and the latest month is Aug 2004 (prelim) at 457.4.
I don't know if anyone out there may be interested, but in any case here is a link to a quite different and novel method of curve-fitting, which I have developed courtesy of brother Fourier :-D and is here applied to the CEPCI data over 54 years. The last data point is currently unconfirmed and is simply used as a "probable".
The Excel add-in module called "Solver" is here used to converge the curve fit.
Such a method is based on the assumptions stated on the spreadsheet, and can be used (with appropriate cautions, like any curve fitting method) to project moderately into the future. (btw I also use this method with reasonable success, to project cyclical activity in such areas as stock prices, etc.) :-D
Silverbaron - Very impressive. I see you have taken the Oct 2004 value as applying to the whole year. That may result in an overestimate for that year. However it looks like we are in for a substantial rise in the index after 8 years in the 382- 402 range. Taking the July 2004 value of 445.6 as an estimate of the index for 2004, we may be in for a 10% increase. Where did that come from? Low sulphur gasoline and diesel projects? High crude oil prices? Since the construction labour component is going down it must be the high price of steel. The structural component is up 32% from Nov 2003 to Nov 2004. So perhaps the index is up due to demand from China.
you said: "Taking the July 2004 value of 445.6 as an estimate of the index for 2004, we may be in for a 10% increase. Where did that come from?"
As commodities are world-priced in US$, then over the short run the value of the dollar index (DX) can be seen as an important driver of of the materials-component of prices. The Dollar Index goes down, and prices go up. Beyond that of course, since prices are set at the margin, China is an important (and growing) contributor to global GNP so thereby one could see this as useful data to consider.
I happen to live in a causeless choiceless world (yet that is quite another story LOL) and tend to see everything as already in the price of the index. "what is, is" ... so to speak.
However my analytical sense is, looking from an economics "causal" point of view - and if the data were available - a useful study would be to see how global GNP, US bond prices, and DX would be related to the CEPCI. I have not analyzed these, however.
Silverbaron - I believe the index for the year is an average of each month rather than the Dec index. So the July index would approximate the whole year index, as would the June index. I may be wrong, let's try it another way. From the Feb 2005 issue of Chem Eng, Nov prelim index is 462.5, Nov 2003 index 403.8, annual increase 14.5%. Either way we will see an unusual increase.
The CEPCI for 2004 came in at 444.2 . That was 10.5% over the index for 2003 which was 402. The April 2005 index (preliminary was 468.1 which is down by 0.2 from the March 2005 index which was 468.3. This drop suggests that the period of large increases due to the price of steel has ended. Chemical Engineering Magazine July 2005 has an editorial on the subject.
