What's the difference between registered and eligible inventory on COMEX?

Registered (or 'warranted') inventory is metal that has an active warehouse warrant attached and is therefore deliverable against a futures contract right now. Eligible inventory meets COMEX bar-quality and warehouse standards but has no active warrant — it can become deliverable on short notice if a warrant is issued, but it isn't right now. Total inventory is the sum of the two; the registered share is the figure that matters for delivery-month physical settlement risk.

Where does MetalCharts pull COMEX inventory from?

From CME Group's daily warehouse stock reports, which list per-depository (Brink's, Loomis, JPM, HSBC, Manfra Tordella & Brookes, Malca-Amit, etc.) registered, eligible, and total holdings for each metal. We mirror the same depository breakdown CME publishes — we do not aggregate across depositories or smooth the daily values.

How often does COMEX inventory update?

Once per business day, after CME publishes the prior day's warehouse report (typically released early in the New York morning, ~4:00 PM CT for the previous day's positions). We pull, normalize, and refresh the public series within an hour of CME's publication. Holidays and CME maintenance windows can push this back several hours.

Why do you display COMEX gold and silver in troy ounces but copper in pounds?

Because that's how the contracts are denominated. The COMEX gold futures contract is 100 troy ounces, the silver contract is 5,000 troy ounces, and the high-grade copper contract is 25,000 pounds. We surface the data in the same unit the deliverable contract uses so the inventory figures map directly to contract-equivalents (one delivery notice per gold contract = 100 oz of registered metal off the float).

How far back does the historical COMEX data go?

Daily warehouse data is available back to the early 2000s for the major COMEX metals (gold, silver, copper). We hold the full daily series in our database, not a downsampled monthly snapshot, so cumulative changes over arbitrary date ranges are exact rather than interpolated.

Why do I sometimes see large overnight jumps in registered inventory?

Most large overnight changes reflect 'reclassifications' — metal moving between eligible and registered status when a warrant is issued or surrendered — rather than physical metal entering or leaving the depository. Net total inventory typically barely moves on those days. We surface both the registered and eligible columns so reclassifications are visible.

Do you publish COMEX delivery notices?

Yes — large stoppers and issuers per delivery month are tracked separately at /comex/delivery-notices. Delivery notice data combined with registered inventory tells you how much of the float has been called for physical delivery in any given month, which is the cleanest physical-tightness signal in the COMEX system.

COMEX Inventory Methodology

How MetalCharts sources and presents COMEX warehouse stocks for gold, silver, copper, and platinum-group metals.

Written by

MetalCharts Editorial

Published May 12, 2026

Source data

All COMEX warehouse stock figures on MetalCharts come from CME Group’s daily depository reports for the COMEX division. CME publishes one report per business day per metal, listing registered, eligible, and total holdings broken down by approved depository (currently Brink’s, Loomis, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Manfra Tordella & Brookes, Malca-Amit, International Depository Services, and a handful of smaller facilities).

We mirror the per-depository granularity CME provides rather than collapsing to a single network-wide total. This matters because most of the meaningful inventory changes during a delivery month happen at one or two specific depositories, and the per-depository view is what tells you which house is being drawn down.

Registered vs eligible

Registered (sometimes called “warranted”) inventory has an active CME warehouse warrant attached and is therefore deliverable against a futures contract on demand. This is the figure that matters when assessing physical settlement risk in an active delivery month.

Eligible inventory meets CME bar-quality and warehouse standards but does not have an active warrant. It can be moved into the registered pool on short notice if its owner chooses to issue a warrant, but it cannot be delivered against a contract in its current state.

Total inventory is the sum of registered and eligible. We display all three series with a daily delta so the reclassifications between the two pools are visible.

Update cadence

CME publishes warehouse stock reports once per business day, typically around 4:00 PM Central Time covering the prior day’s positions. Our ingest pulls, normalizes, and refreshes the public series within an hour of CME’s publication. Stamped “updated” timestamps on each page reflect the timestamp of our most recent successful pull, not the CME publication time.

CME does not publish on US bank holidays or during planned maintenance windows. On those days the most recent value is held flat in our charts. We do not interpolate or smooth.

Units & conventions

We display each metal in the unit its COMEX deliverable contract uses, so inventory totals map directly to contract-equivalents:

Gold — troy ounces (contract size 100 oz)
Silver — troy ounces (contract size 5,000 oz)
Copper — pounds (contract size 25,000 lbs)
Platinum — troy ounces (contract size 50 oz)
Palladium — troy ounces (contract size 100 oz)

Limitations to know about

Large single-day moves in the registered column are usually reclassifications between eligible and registered, not physical metal entering or leaving the depository network. Watch the total column alongside the registered column to distinguish reclassifications from real in/outflows.

CME revises historical reports occasionally for clerical corrections. We re-pull the prior 14 days nightly to catch most revisions; older revisions are accepted on a manual basis when CME flags them.

We are not affiliated with CME Group. All trademark rights to the underlying data remain with CME Group, Inc.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between registered and eligible inventory on COMEX?: Registered (or 'warranted') inventory is metal that has an active warehouse warrant attached and is therefore deliverable against a futures contract right now. Eligible inventory meets COMEX bar-quality and warehouse standards but has no active warrant — it can become deliverable on short notice if a warrant is issued, but it isn't right now. Total inventory is the sum of the two; the registered share is the figure that matters for delivery-month physical settlement risk.
Where does MetalCharts pull COMEX inventory from?: From CME Group's daily warehouse stock reports, which list per-depository (Brink's, Loomis, JPM, HSBC, Manfra Tordella & Brookes, Malca-Amit, etc.) registered, eligible, and total holdings for each metal. We mirror the same depository breakdown CME publishes — we do not aggregate across depositories or smooth the daily values.
How often does COMEX inventory update?: Once per business day, after CME publishes the prior day's warehouse report (typically released early in the New York morning, ~4:00 PM CT for the previous day's positions). We pull, normalize, and refresh the public series within an hour of CME's publication. Holidays and CME maintenance windows can push this back several hours.
Why do you display COMEX gold and silver in troy ounces but copper in pounds?: Because that's how the contracts are denominated. The COMEX gold futures contract is 100 troy ounces, the silver contract is 5,000 troy ounces, and the high-grade copper contract is 25,000 pounds. We surface the data in the same unit the deliverable contract uses so the inventory figures map directly to contract-equivalents (one delivery notice per gold contract = 100 oz of registered metal off the float).
How far back does the historical COMEX data go?: Daily warehouse data is available back to the early 2000s for the major COMEX metals (gold, silver, copper). We hold the full daily series in our database, not a downsampled monthly snapshot, so cumulative changes over arbitrary date ranges are exact rather than interpolated.
Why do I sometimes see large overnight jumps in registered inventory?: Most large overnight changes reflect 'reclassifications' — metal moving between eligible and registered status when a warrant is issued or surrendered — rather than physical metal entering or leaving the depository. Net total inventory typically barely moves on those days. We surface both the registered and eligible columns so reclassifications are visible.
Do you publish COMEX delivery notices?: Yes — large stoppers and issuers per delivery month are tracked separately at /comex/delivery-notices. Delivery notice data combined with registered inventory tells you how much of the float has been called for physical delivery in any given month, which is the cleanest physical-tightness signal in the COMEX system.