CRB is the abbreviation of Commodity Research Bureau. CRB index has always played an important role in the economic field. Not only economists attach great importance to it, but also all kinds of investors (including investors in commodity futures) are also very concerned. In fact, CRB index has become an extremely important consulting content for investors in investment analysis. This paper introduces the origin of CRB index and its great changes in 2005, and evaluates the significance and function of CRB index.

Significance of CRB index

Because the commodities covered by CRB index are all commodities with the nature of raw materials, and because their prices come from the futures market, their timeliness is unparalleled. Therefore, the index plays a special role in reflecting the overall dynamics of world commodity prices. It can not only better reflect the changes of producer price index (PPI) and consumer price index (CPI), but also be more advanced and sensitive than CPI and PPI, and can be regarded as an indicator of inflation. The research shows that CRB index is a good inflation index, which fluctuates in the same direction as inflation index and bond yield. To some extent, it reflects the trend of economic development.

Because CRB index contains the price fluctuation of core commodities, it generally reflects the dynamic information of the world's major commodity prices, and is widely used to observe and analyze the price fluctuation and macroeconomic fluctuation of commodity markets, and can reveal the future trend of macroeconomics to some extent. It can better reflect the changes of producer price index (PPI) and consumer price index (CPI). The research shows that CRB index is a good inflation index, which fluctuates in the same direction as inflation index and bond yield. It can be said that CRB index reflects the trend of economic development to a certain extent, and has strong convergence with economic fluctuations.