How ResourceCap Calculates Its Market Data
ResourceCap tracks prices and market capitalizations for metals, commodities, mining and energy stocks, and ETFs. This page explains where every number comes from and how often it refreshes.
How metal market caps are calculated
For gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper, ResourceCap calculates market capitalization as spot price × above-ground supply — the estimated total quantity of the metal ever mined that still exists in refined form. This mirrors how a company's market cap is share price × shares outstanding, treating each troy ounce (or tonne) of refined metal as a "share" of that metal.
Supply estimates are curated from primary sources: World Gold Council above-ground stock data for gold, the Silver Institute's World Silver Survey for silver, and USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries for platinum, palladium, and copper. These figures are reviewed and updated when new annual reports are released.
Oil and agricultural commodities
For WTI and Brent crude oil, the market cap figure is price × world proven crude oil reserves, using reserve estimates from the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin. It is a valuation of proven reserves rather than of a circulating supply.
Agricultural and energy futures sourced from Yahoo Finance (natural gas, coffee, cocoa, sugar, wheat, corn, soybeans) show price only. Their published supply figures describe annual production flows, not an above-ground stock, so multiplying price by them would not produce a meaningful market capitalization — ResourceCap deliberately shows no market cap for them.
How stock and ETF data works
Mining and oil & gas stock market caps are calculated as current share price × shares outstanding. Share counts come from Yahoo Finance company data and are refreshed periodically; prices come from TwelveData with exchange-level identifiers (NYSE, NASDAQ, TSX, LSE), so the market cap always reflects the latest cached price.
For foreign-listed stocks quoted in pence on the LSE or in Canadian dollars on the TSX, prices are converted to USD so rankings stay comparable across exchanges.
Data pipeline and refresh cadence
Live prices are fetched from TwelveData (metals, crude oil, stocks, ETFs) and Yahoo Finance (agricultural and natural gas futures) by background workers that write into a PostgreSQL cache. Assets are refreshed in staggered groups, so most prices on the site are at most a few minutes old — roughly a 2–5 minute cadence per asset during market hours.
The website serves data exclusively from this cache: page requests never trigger a live third-party API call. Historical OHLCV candles are archived per asset and timeframe, letting daily charts extend back beyond the rolling window upstream APIs return. USD values can be displayed in 33 local currencies using daily USD exchange rates, converting each data point with the FX rate of its own day.
COMEX inventory data
The COMEX inventory dashboard tracks registered and eligible gold and silver stocks held in COMEX-approved depositories, based on the exchange's published warehouse reports. Registered metal has a warrant attached and is deliverable against futures contracts; eligible metal meets exchange standards but has no warrant attached.
Sources, accuracy, and contact
Price data can be delayed by up to a few minutes relative to live markets, and third-party feeds occasionally publish corrections. ResourceCap is an informational service, not investment advice. If you spot a data issue, contact the team via the contact page — corrections are applied to the underlying cache and history where possible.