Until the launch of Bloomberg Billionaires, the best way to keep tabs on the world’s wealthiest people was probably Forbes magazine’s yearly ranking of the world’s billionaires. But for those among us who want a more real-time assessment of how the captains of industry are faring, Bloomberg launched a new feature dubbed The Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Each Bloomberg Billionaire profile contains a detailed analysis of how that person’s fortune has been tallied. The index is a dynamic measure of the world’s wealthy based on changes in markets, the economy and Bloomberg reporting. Each net-worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. New York time. Stakes in publicly traded companies are valued using the share’s most recent closing price. All numbers are in U.S. dollars at current exchange rates.