> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.focusalpha.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Index and Commodity Benchmarks

> Daily prices for 425 equity indices and 40 commodities, with ten years of history from 2015.

Index and Commodity Benchmarks provides daily prices for 425 equity indices and 40 commodities — the S\&P 500, the Nikkei, the Hang Seng, gold, WTI, copper. Each observation is one benchmark symbol on one date. History runs from 2015, ten years, which is far longer than the one-year window on [company prices](/market-data/prices).

<Info>
  **Plan:** Professional and above · **Credits:** 1 per call
</Info>

## What You Can Use Benchmarks For

Compute a stock's return relative to the market it trades in. Measure a company's exposure to a commodity it buys or sells. Build a long backtest baseline, which company prices cannot support at one year of history. Compare regional markets over a decade.

## Benchmarks Cover Indices and Commodities, Not Companies

No company identifier works on this endpoint. It serves benchmark symbols only. For a company's own price series, use [Daily Prices](/market-data/prices).

## Look Up the Benchmark Symbol First

<Warning>
  Benchmark symbols are vendor spellings and are **not guessable**. The S\&P 500 is `^GSPC` and gold is `GCUSD`, but 37 indices carry no caret at all: `XIN9.FGI` is the FTSE China A50, `DX-Y.NYB` is the dollar index, and `000001.SS` is the Shanghai Composite despite looking exactly like a listed share.
</Warning>

Pass `search` with a name — `gold`, `Nikkei`, `DAX` — to get the registry back, optionally narrowed with `kind` to `index` or `commodity`. Search takes precedence when both `search` and `symbol` are supplied.

## Read close\_major for a Commodity

<Warning>
  Twelve agricultural contracts quote in **US cents**, with a `currency` of `USX`. Corn's close of `508.5` is $5.085 a bushel, not $508.50.

  Read `close_major` and `currency_major`, which are the same figure folded into the major unit. For every other benchmark they equal `close` and `currency`, so reading them is always safe.
</Warning>

## Weekend Rows Are Real

A benchmark row on a Saturday or Sunday is not an error. The Saudi and Egyptian markets trade on Sunday, CBOT grains run a Sunday-evening session, and a few calculated indices restate Friday's value on Saturday.

Do not filter weekend rows out as bad data.

## Key Benchmark Fields

Each row carries the benchmark `symbol`, the `date`, the open, high, low and close, `currency`, and the `close_major` and `currency_major` pair described above. The registry rows returned by `search` carry the symbol, its name and its `kind`.

## Benchmarks Date Convention

Each row is the session on that date on the benchmark's own calendar, which as noted is not always a weekday. History runs from 2015 and rows are returned newest first.

## Benchmarks Sources

Index and commodity prices come from market data vendors, in the vendor's own symbol space — which is why the symbols must be looked up rather than constructed.

## Query Benchmarks

Use the benchmarks endpoint to look a symbol up, then to fetch its series.

<ParamField query="search" type="string">
  A name or symbol to look up instead of fetching a series, for example `gold` or `Nikkei`. Returns the registry.
</ParamField>

<ParamField query="kind" type="string">
  Restrict a search to `index` or `commodity`.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="symbol" type="string">
  The benchmark symbol whose series to fetch, for example `^GSPC`, `^N225`, `GCUSD`, `CLUSD`.
</ParamField>

<ParamField query="date_gte" type="string">
  Earliest date, `YYYY-MM-DD`. `date_lte` sets the ceiling.
</ParamField>

<ParamField query="limit" type="integer" default="100">
  Rows per page, between 1 and 1000. Page through with `cursor`.
</ParamField>

## Related Datasets

See also [Daily Prices](/market-data/prices) for a company's own series, [Daily Market Cap](/market-data/market-cap), and [Company Screening](/companies/screening) for momentum filters across the company universe.

<RequestExample>
  ```bash cURL theme={null}
  curl "https://api.focusalpha.ai/v1/benchmarks?search=gold&kind=commodity" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $FOCUSALPHA_API_KEY"
  ```
</RequestExample>

<ResponseExample>
  ```json Search: /v1/benchmarks?search=gold&kind=commodity theme={null}
  {
    "data": [
      {
        "symbol": "GCUSD",
        "kind": "commodity",
        "name": "Gold Futures",
        "exchange": "",
        "currency": "USD"
      }
    ]
  }
  ```

  ```json Prices: /v1/benchmarks?symbol=GCUSD&limit=1 theme={null}
  {
    "data": [
      {
        "symbol": "GCUSD",
        "kind": "commodity",
        "name": "Gold Futures",
        "date": "2026-08-31",
        "open": 4483.2,
        "high": 4521.5,
        "low": 4445.6,
        "close": 4481.5,
        "volume": "149223",
        "currency": "USD",
        "close_major": 4481.5,
        "currency_major": "USD"
      }
    ],
    "next_cursor": "WyIyMDI2LTA4LTI4Il0",
    "coverage": {
      "available_from": "2015-01-01",
      "available_to": null,
      "update_frequency": "daily",
      "history_status": "from_2015"
    }
  }
  ```
</ResponseExample>