Baltic Dry Index (BDI) or also known as the “Dry Bulk Index” is a shipping and trade index created by the Baltic Exchange which is based in London. BDI is a daily average of prices to transport raw materials such as cements, fuels, grains and metals across the sea.
The Baltic Exchange, global marketplace for brokering shipping contracts, will directly contacts the shipping brokers to assess the price levels for a given route, product to transport and time to delivery (speed). The index is quoted every working day at 1300hr London time.
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The Big Mac index is published by The Economist in September 1986 as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies. It provides a view of the extent to which market exchange rates deviate from their true values.
The Big Mac was chosen because it is available to a common specification in many countries around the world, with local McDonald’s franchisees having significant responsibility for negotiating input prices. Currently McDonald’s Big Mac is sold in about 120 countries. The Big Mac index enables a comparison between many countries’ currencies.
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