Methodology & data sources

OreSignal · Publisher: EK Digital Studio · Last updated: 13 July 2026 · Version 1.1

OreSignal distils the supply-chain risk of five critical raw materials — cobalt, nickel, neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium — into a single daily 0–100 Asteroid Index. This page explains exactly what the score is, how it is built, and its limits. OreSignal is an informational tool, not financial advice.

1. What the index is

The Asteroid Index is a directional supply-risk signal, not a market price or a fundamentals valuation. A higher score means a more concentrated, more stressed, or more news-active supply picture. It is designed to be read as a radar, not a forecast.

2. The four components

Each material's score combines four drivers, each on a 0–100 scale:

• KK — Extraction concentration (weight 30%): how concentrated mined supply is in a single country. Anchored to real production-by-country data.
• FK — Processing / geopolitical stress (weight 25%): processing dependence and supply-risk pressure, adjusted by the risk sentiment of recent news.
• KV — Demand / attention volatility (weight 25%): scales with the volume of recent news attention versus a normal reference level.
• HP — Substitution difficulty (weight 20%): how hard the material is to substitute; a structural, slow-moving factor.

Asteroid Index = 0.30·KK + 0.25·FK + 0.25·KV + 0.20·HP. Bands: LOW below 40, ELEVATED 40–70, HIGH above 70.

3. Data sources

• Extraction concentration (KK): top-producer share from the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (2025 data). Structural and updated about once a year. Each material screen shows its specific source line.
• News signal (FK & KV): a best-effort, key-free query of the GDELT global news database over a recent window. News volume nudges KV; the balance of risk-related versus easing-related headlines nudges FK, within bounded limits around the baseline.
• Substitution (HP): a documented structural constant per material.
• Price context (link-out): each material links to a reputable public price page for context; it is not embedded in the index. Neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium share the liquid rare-earth (Nd) reference, because independent free price pages for Pr/Dy are not reliably available.

If a live news fetch fails on a given day, the app falls back to the documented baseline and labels the reading accordingly, so a score is always valid.

4. "Why it moved"

Each material shows a short explanation of what primarily moved the score this cycle — supply/processing stress or demand/attention — together with the headlines behind it, so the number is never a black box.

5. Limits

• The index reacts to news attention, which can be noisy and can lag or lead physical markets.
• Structural factors (KK, HP) update slowly; short-term shocks are reflected mainly through the news signal.
• The index is not a price, a return forecast, or investment advice. Always do your own research.

6. Roadmap

We are progressively strengthening the model with additional real data (for example, direct price context where reliably and lawfully available) and broader material coverage. Methodology changes are versioned; this page reflects the current version.

Questions: oresignalapp@gmail.com