The increasing tendency for gold and silver to behave like safe-haven currencies instead of cyclical commodities has been a godsend for miners lately. On average, mining stocks have a higher correlation with broad stock indices like the S&P500 and FTSE than with metals prices, but when enthusiasm and demand for precious metals is at a fever pitch, as in the late 1970s to 1980, it seems that miners begin to distinguish themselves. I should note that the opposite is seems to be true at the other extreme – witness the 60% decline of the XAU Gold & Silver index from 1995-2000, while the S&P500 tripled.

Here’s a three-month view of our Base Metal Producer index vs. our Gold Producer index (you can play with more index comparisons here):

This month has not been kind to industrial resource stocks, since the broader commodity complex has been hit hard by traders anxious to unwind risk. For some perspective on how much unwinding has taken place, West Texas oil briefly traded under $80 this week, down from $114 this spring and $100 just three weeks ago:

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Dr. Copper is holding up a bit better, but is still down 14%:

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Not surprisingly, our Movers lists of best performing stocks over the past month are now dominated by precious metals companies. Here’s a snapshot, but you can see the whole list here and filter it by country or time frame:

The entire minerals sector has performed very well in July, with precious metals stocks finally catching a bid, but industrial materials stocks have been the best performers of the year.

Here’s a chart of some of the strongest indices since the 2008 crash (pink: rare earths; purple: heavy minerals; blue: base metal producers; green: coal):

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Site tip: To compare indices in a single chart like this, go to http://miningalmanac.com/indices and select “compare” or just go to http://miningalmanac.com/indices/compare.

You can also compare any individual stock to the indices (or the gold price) by going to its pages and clicking on the “charts” tab:

We’ve made 15 new mining indices showing the 5-year performance of stocks in various mineral groups and industry sub-sectors. Take a look and see what patterns you can discover: http://miningalmanac.com/indexes

It’s very easy to us to create new indices based on almost any criteria (market cap range, mineral, country, exchange, etc), so let us know if you have any special requests. Index component companies are listed below each chart, and you can click through to compare them all in the datagrid.

BTW, did you know that iron ore explorers and rare earth stocks have been the hottest sectors over the last 12 months, or that the diamond and uranium sectors remain closer to their 2008/2009 lows than their 2006 highs? Neither did we until we graphed them.

Indices update every night from 23:00-24:00 UTC using daily closing prices.

Check out our new company pages. Along with several visual improvements, we’ve added a Value Report Card on each company’s main page, showing at a glance how the stock ranks on key value investing metrics. See below at upper right:

We’ve reached our original goal of providing full resource, production, property and financial data on over 1500 mining stocks worldwide, all for free and easily accessed with our advanced stock screener.

We’re now adding lots of smaller mining stocks, with all resource, production and financial data. This site is approaching our goal of containing all key info on practically every public mining company in the world.

Lots of new Australian stocks this time. Currently adding about 200+ US OTC stocks.

We just loaded up another 125 stocks and reached the quadruple digits. The latest additions are mostly Australian stocks, of which we now have 267.

The newcomers are listed below. To see their data, search for them using our filters or just type in a name or ticker.

YTC Resources Ltd
Yellow Rock Resources Ltd
Western Plains Resources Ltd
Westgold Resources Ltd
WildHorse Energy Ltd
Wolf Minerals Ltd
South American Iron & Steel
Southern Gold Ltd
Southern Uranium Ltd
Sphere Minerals Ltd
St Barbara Ltd
Stellar Resources Ltd
Stonehenge Metals Ltd
Sundance Resources Ltd
Syndicated Metals Ltd
Talisman Mining Ltd
Tanami Gold NL
Tasman Resources NL
Tectonic Resources NL
Territory Resources Ltd
Thundelarra Exploration Ltd
Corvette Resources Ltd
Tiger Resources Ltd
TNG Ltd
Tri Origin Minerals Ltd
U3O8 Ltd
Altona Mining Ltd
Uranex NL
Uranium Equities Ltd
Uranium Exploration Australia Ltd
Vector Resources Ltd
Venture Minerals Ltd
Vital Metals Ltd
WCP Resources Ltd
Marenica Energy Ltd
Western Desert Resources Ltd
South Boulder Mines Ltd
Reed Resources Ltd
Regal Resources Ltd
Regis Resources Ltd
Renison Consolidated Mines NL
Republic Gold Ltd
Resolute Mining Ltd
Resource Mining Corporation Ltd
Reward Minerals Ltd
Rey Resources Ltd
Rox Resources Ltd
Royal Resources Ltd
European Nickel plc
Venturex Resources Ltd
Sipa Resources Ltd
Range Resources Ltd
Range River Gold Ltd
Red 5 Ltd
Red Hill Iron Ltd
Ord River Resources Ltd
Sihayo Gold Ltd
Oroya Mining Ltd
Overland Resources Ltd
Paladin Energy Ltd
PanAust Ltd
Panoramic Resources Ltd
Pelican Resources Ltd
Peninsula Minerals Ltd
Pepinnini Minerals Ltd
Perseus Mining Ltd
Pioneer Resources Ltd
Platinum Australia Ltd
PlatSearch NL
Pluton Resources Ltd
Poseidon Nickel Ltd
Prairie Downs Metals Ltd
Strzelecki Metals Ltd
Prosperity Resources Ltd
Proto Resources & Investments Ltd
Quantum Resources Ltd
Ram Resources Ltd
Ramelius Resources Ltd
Mount Burgess Mining NL
Mount Magnet South NL
Mundo Minerals Ltd
Nex Metals Explorations Ltd
NGM Resources Ltd
Nimrodel Resources Ltd
Niplats Australia Ltd
Nkwe Platinum Ltd
North Australian Diamonds Ltd
Northern Star Resources Ltd
Northwest Resources Ltd
Norton Gold Fields Ltd
OceanaGold Corp
Midas Resources Ltd
Minara Resources Ltd
Mincor Resources NL
Mindax Ltd
Minemakers Ltd
Mineral Commodities Ltd
Mineral Deposits Ltd
Minerals Corp Ltd
Mintails Ltd
Monax Mining Ltd
Lonrho Mining Ltd
Lynas Corp Ltd
Magma Metals Ltd
Malachite Resources NL
Mantle Mining Corp Ltd
Mantra Resources Ltd
Marathon Resources Ltd
Marengo Mining Ltd
Matsa Resources Ltd
Maximus Resources Ltd
Medusa Mining Ltd
Metallica Minerals Ltd
Metals Australia Ltd
Metals X Ltd
Lincoln Minerals Ltd
Leyshon Resources Ltd
Legend Mining Ltd
Kingsgate Consolidated Ltd
Kings Minerals NL
Kentor Gold Ltd
Kagara Ltd
Jupiter Mines Ltd
Jindalee Resources Ltd
Jervois Mining Ltd

The latest 100 additions are listed below. We have added our dedicated pages for every stock in the database. Just click on a company name from the datagrid to view a preview, then click “See Full Data” to visit their pages. Once on the company pages, if you want to see full resource and production data on all of a company’s properties, click the “Resource Data” tab.