Our Materials Price Index (MPI) decreased 1.4% last week, with half of the index's ten sub-components falling. Markets have been growing increasingly nervous about growth prospects with widening Chinese COVID-19 lockdowns and higher interest rates in recent weeks. This sparked the second consecutive weekly decline in commodity prices with prices now collectively 10.4% lower than the all-time high established in early March. {chart} Declining industrial metal prices were the main reason for the drop in the MPI last week. The nonferrous metal index was down 5%, with five of six of the tracked base metals falling (tin ... (full story)