Export Prices MoM

The U.S. Export Price Index tracks average price change since the base period for US exports. The reference point is set to 100. It comes from BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US price agency) through IPP (International Price Program, its trade survey) each month. It covers nearly all merchandise goods exports, physical goods leaving the country, plus only 2 services: export air freight and air passenger fares.

It never shows price levels, buyer costs with duties, government import taxes, or domestic inflation. It shows only change since the base period. It does not publish actual prices. It is read with annual moves for trend.

Prices should reflect trade near the start of the reference month. Unit values, average value per unit, cover the full month. The joint import and export release appears in the month after the reference month, around mid-month, embargoed until 8:30 a.m. ET. Each release shows text and tables with index values, trade shares and monthly and annual moves in percent.

Dates shift with weekends and holidays. Each month can be revised for 3 months, then it is final. It is read as change in percent.

Moves come from end-use groups, groupings by buyer purpose, with example trade shares, plus air services.

• Agricultural commodities, 8.636%: farm and food exports like soybeans, corn, wheat, nuts, meat and fruit.
• Foods, feeds and beverages, 8.123%: exported foodstuffs for people and animals plus drinks.
• Industrial supplies and materials, 38.257%: bulk inputs like fuels, metals, chemicals and building materials.
• Capital goods, 31.579%: machinery, aircraft, computers, semiconductors and medical gear.
• Automotive vehicles, parts and engines, 9.247%: vehicles and parts for assembly and repair.
• Consumer goods excluding automotives, 12.794%: apparel, household goods, jewelry and medicines.

An example in the published record shows export prices down 1.9% for the month and down 10.1% for 12 months. Agricultural exports fell 2.1% for the month and 8.1% for 12 months on lower corn, soybean and wheat. Nonagricultural exports fell 1.8% as industrial supplies slid 4.5% on a 10.1% fuel drop.

Finished goods rose against the headline with capital goods up 0.1% and consumer goods up 0.2% and automotive up 0.1%. The lesson is that the headline averages with bigger export groups counting more, so plunging fuel can outweigh rising finished goods.

1. Matched-item pricing: Collect the same item with the same features and deal terms each month on a border basis. Exports are generally f.a.s., price beside the ship, or f.o.b., price loaded on board.
2. Relatives and weights: Divide each item price by its base price to get its relative. Weight it by trade dollars from 2 years earlier. Weights update on a regular annual cycle using trade records.
3. Chained Lowe formula: Multiply prior-month index by the short-term ratio, survey-month weighted relatives divided by prior month, to get survey-month index. Build up from items to company groups to product groups to the top all-goods export index.
4. Missing prices: When a price is missing, first fill it with the parent group move, called cell-mean imputation, then revise by straight-line interpolation.
5. Reweighting, rounding and example: Reweight on a regular annual cycle on trade from 2 years earlier with no change for seasons. Keep the base of 100 where possible, round moves to 1 decimal place and read rolling 12-month moves for trend. Take 2 items with equal weight and base prices of 10 and 20. If they move to 10 and 30, relatives of 1.00 and 1.50 give an index of 125.0 and a rise of 25.0%.