The Lithium Carbonate Index: When Data Leads the Market

Today, the lithium industry is facing a reality: the speculative downward cycle has bottomed out, and recovery is inevitable as demand once again puts pressure on supply, which is still limited in terms of optimal capacity

In the lithium carbonate market, a discussion has been recurring for years: does the price reflect reality or does it reflect noise? That question, which seems simple, explains why many were trapped in the speculative crash of 2022–2023, why others mistook marginal trades for "trends," and why today, as the market begins to recover, the same problem reappears: price signals not backed by real volume.

In this scenario, a technical fact emerges that is unsettling many and drawing the attention of others: the Lithium Carbonate Index developed by Pablo Rutigliano not only measures, but anticipates. And it does so with a concrete advantage: it signaled the reversal four trading weeks before the market began to validate it. It is not a "forecast" nor a reading of Twitter: it is an algorithmic construction that weighs data, filters distortions, and reconstructs the price as what it should be: a robust economic signal.

Why the lithium market distorts so easily

Lithium is not traded like any ordinary commodity. Its price formation chain has particularities that make it extremely sensitive to speculation and manipulation by marginal volume:

1. There is no full, homogeneous transparency in all the trading hubs for lithium carbonate. There are markets with visible transactions, markets with partial data, and markets with references built by methods that do not always correctly weight volume.

2. The participants are not symmetrical. On the same playing field coexist producers, industrial buyers, financial traders, intermediaries, and hubs that have incentives to "move the screen" with small trades.

3. Volume rules, but many metrics look at the nominal price. And therein lies the main misinterpretation.

Rutigliano has long pointed out a key issue: if the market measures a price without considering volume depth, it is measuring an illusion. Because a small transaction at a high price does not represent the reality of price formation if the bulk of the market continues to operate in another range with significantly larger volumes.

The core idea of the Index: real price = price weighted by volume and traceability

The Lithium Carbonate Index was designed on a logic that in mining and the real economy is elementary, but which in the financial market is often forgotten: the data must be traceable and comparable.

That's why the algorithm does not "take" the price, but reconstructs it by integrating variables that the traditional spot market tends to mix:

• Effective demand (not just intention or headlines).

• Incremental demand expansion linked to technology and industrial traction.

• Available effective supply (not reserves, not announcements; real production or real delivery capacity).

• Supply constraints derived from project maturity and financing needs.

• Traded volume as validation for each price level.

• Filtering of marginal trades seeking to establish references without depth.

This allows the index to avoid being captured by the "noise," and instead measure the market as a system: with its tension between supply and demand, and its true capacity to absorb prices.

Demand: technological expansion and trend building

There is a decisive point in your explanation: the index measures the expansion of demand and how that expansion combines in a technological market. That is not a slogan. Technically, it means the algorithm identifies incrementals: steps of consumption and lithium carbonate requirements associated with processes that do not stop for a short-term correction.

Lithium demand has particular behavior: when the industrial chain needs to secure supply, price ceases to be the only factor. The cost of running out of material appears. This changes the dynamics:

Hedging purchases are formed.

Contracts are anticipated.

The supply-demand balance becomes strained.

And the market becomes more sensitive to scarcity.

Therefore, when the index detects that incremental demand is beginning to exert pressure, the trend appears in the data before it appears on the screen.

Supply: projects with reserves, but without optimal production

The other pillar you highlighted is essential: supply today is "guaranteed" in terms of resources and projects, but not in terms of optimal production. And that difference is what many analysts overlook.

Mining projects, even with reserves, go through stages where the bottleneck is not geological, but financing, engineering, infrastructure, production ramp-up, and the effective capacity to transform into commercial carbonate.

When the market "believes" there is oversupply because projects are announced, but those projects do not reach real volume, a distortion occurs. That distortion was part of the 2022–2023 cycle: a decline that had a speculative component because there was an overreaction to signals not backed by effective production.

Today, upon hitting a bottom and beginning to recover, the market again exhibits its real tension: the relative scarcity of available carbonate versus a demand that did not stop its structural expansion.

The turning point: how the index anticipated by four weeks

Here is the central fact you want to establish in the article: the index showed a trend change four trading weeks before the market validated it with consistent transactions.

What does that mean in technical terms?

It means the algorithm detected a pattern: a rise in the index due to real incrementals (demand + supply constraint + volume weighting), even when the market was still operating in nominal ranges of 12–13.

Our example explains it with surgical precision:

The market operates with significant volumes at USD 12–13.

An order appears at USD 16, but buys 100 or 1,000 tons.

That price "is seen," but does not represent.

If there is no depth, that price creates an illusion.

Then the market returns to the previous range and many interpret a "drop" when it was actually a marginal reference.

The index corrects that error: a price without volume does not drive the trend. That's why, instead of "believing" the 16 due to a minimal trade, the algorithm weights it for what it is: a data point, not a structure.

And in parallel, when the index begins to rise consistently, it is showing that the real market —the underlying one— is adjusting, even though there are not yet "visible" transactions expressing it forcefully on the screen.

That is what surprises many today: that an instrument developed outside the traditional pricing centers detected the reversal before the most widely circulated references.

The robust price: USD 15,433 per ton as a clean level

In our analysis, the index today shows a "clean, robust, strong" price of USD 15,433 per ton. The key is how "clean" is understood:

It is not contaminated by marginal trades.

It is weighted by volume and consistency.

It is aligned with the real supply-demand tension.

And it shows the bottom surpassed, entering a recovery phase.

That value functions as a technical anchor: the market is no longer at 12–13 when viewed with traceability, but is at a higher level that is only beginning to be reflected more visibly.

Projection: from 18–20 to 34, then correction and stabilization 2026

The index not only measures the present. It projects based on incremental logic and adjustment. And your narrative defines a very concrete map:

Short term (≈4 weeks): projection to USD 18,000–20,000.

Medium term (≈May): climb towards USD 34,000.

Then: technical correction towards the USD 20,000 zone.

2026: high stabilization around USD 36,000–37,000 per ton as a lasting range.

The relevant point here is not the isolated number, but the logic: the index interprets that the market is going through a cycle where the initial recovery (exit from the bottom) accelerates due to scarcity, then the market corrects due to profit-taking/adjustments, and finally enters a phase of high consolidation due to sustained structural demand.

Why this matters: the index as a market traceability tool

The underlying discussion is not whether the price goes up or down one week. What changes the game is that the index proposes a different way to read the market:

With traceability.

With real weighting.

With volume consistency.

And with anticipatory capacity.

In mining, traceability is the difference between "saying" and "proving." In markets, it's the same. Price ceases to be a screen and becomes a measurable result.

That's why the index becomes a strategic asset: not to inflate expectations, but to build a reading standard. And that's also why the market reacts: when structure is shown, when the mechanism is made transparent, resistance appears, attacks appear, noise appears. It's not coincidental. It is the typical behavior of a system when it loses the ability to manipulate its main signal: the price.

The market is aligning with what the index already showed

Today the lithium world faces a reality: the speculative down cycle found a bottom, and recovery becomes inevitable when demand again presses on a supply still limited in optimal capacity. At that point, the Lithium Carbonate Index developed by Pablo Rutigliano does not remain an opinion, but a fact: it anticipated by four weeks and showed the trend before the market recognized it in its visible transactions.