Newmont

IThe business

Newmont digs gold out of the ground and sells it. That is nearly all of what it does. It also gets copper, silver, lead and zinc from the same rock at some mines, and these are called by-products because the company would not dig for them alone. Gold was 84% of sales in the first nine months of 2026: US$16.5B of US$19.8B.³ Silver was US$1.55B, copper US$0.99B, zinc US$0.59B and lead US$0.12B.³ The company was founded in 1921, has traded publicly since 1925, and has its head office in Denver, Colorado.⁹¹⁰ Its shares trade in New York, with secondary listings in Sydney and Port Moresby.²

It runs twelve operations and holds three big stakes in mines others run. In Papua New Guinea there is Lihir; in Australia Cadia, Tanami and Boddington; in Ghana Ahafo South and Ahafo North; Merian in Suriname; Cerro Negro in Argentina; Yanacocha in Peru; Peñasquito in Mexico; Red Chris and Brucejack in Canada. The stakes are 38.5% of Nevada Gold Mines in the United States, run by Barrick; 40% of Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic; and 32% of Lundin Gold, whose Fruta del Norte mine is in Ecuador.⁴³ In all, the 10-K lists significant operations or assets in twelve countries.² I do the sums in this page in US dollars, and the company reports in US dollars under US accounting rules. My figures and the company’s are on the same basis.

Production in 2025 was 5.889 million ounces of gold attributable to Newmont, meaning its share of each mine, and in 2026 the company guides 5.26 million, so the portfolio is shrinking a little after the sales of five mines, which I come to below.²⁴ The third quarter produced 1.302 million ounces of gold, 23 thousand tonnes of copper and 11 million ounces of silver.⁴ Net income attributable to Newmont was US$2.48B in the quarter, or US$2.35 a share, and adjusted net income was US$2.31B.⁴ The company sold gold at an average US$4,317 an ounce, US$97 less than in the second quarter and US$583 less than in the first.⁴

Three terms I use

All-in sustaining cost, or AISC, is the company’s own measure of what it costs to produce and sell one ounce of gold while keeping the mines running. It includes the cost of mining and milling, royalties, exploration that sustains output, head-office costs, spending to sustain the mines and the accrual for cleaning up later. It leaves out growth projects, interest and income tax.¹² By-product AISC subtracts the money earned from copper, silver and the rest. The company guides US$1,520 for 2026 on this basis.⁴ Co-product AISC shares the cost between the metals by their sales value. It was US$1,963 in the third quarter and US$1,869 so far this year.⁴ Co-product is the harsher number and the one the 10-K and 10-Q now use, so most of my history uses it. By-product is easier to compare with Agnico Eagle, which guides on that basis.⁸

Attributable means Newmont’s share. At Nevada Gold Mines that is 38.5% of every ounce, at Pueblo Viejo 40%. The company counts 100% of its mines where it holds all the shares and 75% of Merian. Consolidated means the company adds up the mines it controls in its accounts; for joint ventures run by others, Nevada Gold Mines is counted in proportion and Pueblo Viejo and Lundin Gold appear only as a line of income and as cash distributions.³

What the company says it will do

The 2026 guidance is 5.26 million attributable ounces, a by-product AISC of US$1,520 (improved from an earlier figure), sustaining capital of US$1.95B and development capital of US$1.4B.⁴ It assumes gold at US$4,500, copper at US$5.00 a pound, silver at US$60, and an Australian dollar at 70 US cents.⁴ For 2027 it expects production up by a low to mid single-digit percentage, costs to rise above 3% inflation because of diesel, the Australian dollar, royalties on a higher gold price and weaker silver, lead and zinc credits from Peñasquito, sustaining capital about flat, and development capital up by about US$500M as the Lihir barrier and the Red Chris block cave start.⁴ Red Chris is the large new project. The first phase is 3.0 million ounces of gold and more than 850 thousand tonnes of copper over 13 years of mining, at a cost of US$4.2B to US$4.8B on a 100% basis, with a decision expected in early 2027 and commercial production in 2033.⁴

Two events this year show how the business can be hit. On 14 April seismic activity near the Cadia mine stopped underground mining; surface work stopped on 11 May when the stockpiles ran out, and production did not return to normal until the third quarter. Cadia made 34,000 ounces in the second quarter against 94,000 in the first.³⁴ And El Niño has cut water supply at Lihir; the company says the drought may affect both output and costs there in the fourth quarter.⁴

The deal with Barrick

On 10 August Newmont and Barrick amended their Nevada Gold Mines agreement and settled all disputes between them over the venture. Barrick’s Fourmile project and Newmont’s Fiberline and Mike will be put into the venture. Newmont pays Barrick US$1.95B in cash within 30 days of the Fourmile transfer, and the venture takes on the projects’ costs. It also consents to Barrick’s proposed public offering of some assets.¹³³ The payment is due in the fourth quarter. It is not in the US$8.8B of cash at 30 September.⁴ I treat it as a purchase at cost in my values, which is a way of saying I give the ounces no credit.

IIThe moat

Gold is gold. Two mines can produce the same ounce and sell it for the same price, and no brand or patent makes one worth more. So the first thing to say is that Newmont’s protection is thin. What follows is what I can show.

Scale and spread

Newmont is bigger than any other gold miner. Its 2026 guide of 5.26 million attributable ounces compares with the 3.3 to 3.5 million payable ounces Agnico Eagle expects, which is at the low end of Agnico’s range after a pit wall movement at Canadian Malartic.⁴⁸ Size helps in four ways. A single event cuts less of the total: Cadia fell from 94,000 ounces in the first quarter to 34,000 in the second and the company still held to its full-year production guidance.⁴ No operation was above 16.7% of nine-month sales, and Peñasquito and Nevada, the two largest, were 31% together C (calculated).³ The company can finance a US$4.5B project from its own cash; it says it will fund Red Chris from internal cash flow.⁴ And it can buy back its own stock at a scale of US$5.2B in nine months without borrowing.³

Reserves

At 31 December 2025 Newmont had 118.2 million ounces of gold in proven and probable reserves, measured at a gold price of US$2,000. That is about 22 years of 2026 output C (calculated). There were also 88.1 million ounces of measured and indicated resources and 60.6 million ounces of inferred.² The company says reserves would be 5% bigger, or 6.4 million ounces, if the price assumption were US$100 higher, and 2% smaller if it were US$100 lower.² Today’s gold price is more than twice the reserve price. That cuts in the company’s favour, and I come back to it in the case for the price. It also cuts the other way: the reserve table is mining for a gold price the market has already left behind, and a lot of the ounces in the ground are lower grade than the headline suggests.

Look at the table’s weak parts. About 21 million ounces are in three projects, Norte Abierto, Wafi-Golpu and NuevaUnión, that Newmont co-owns and that are not in production; 8.2 million are Pueblo Viejo, which Newmont does not run.² Cadia’s 13.5 million ounces are at a grade of 0.42 grams a tonne, which only works with big machines and copper credits. The rest, the ounces at the operating mines it controls, are fewer than the headline. And Yanacocha’s reserve fell from 5.3 million ounces at the end of 2024 to 0.5 million at the end of 2025, a larger drop than a full year of its own mining.²

Copper and silver

The second source of advantage is what comes out with the gold. In the first nine months silver brought in US$1.55B and copper US$0.99B. With zinc and lead the four other metals were US$3.25B, which is 16% of sales C (calculated).³ That money reduces the net cost of each gold ounce: by-product AISC for the nine months was US$1,365, against US$1,869 on the co-product basis, a gap of US$504 an ounce C (calculated).⁴ Copper averaged US$6.36 a pound in the nine months, against a US$5.00 planning price, and that is a cushion.⁴ It can also vanish. Silver production at Peñasquito is expected to fall to about half of its third-quarter level in the fourth quarter.⁴

Cash

The third is the balance sheet. At 30 September Newmont had US$8.8B of cash against US$5.1B of debt and US$0.5B of leases, a net cash position of US$3.2B, plus US$4.0B undrawn on a revolving loan.⁴³ The target is US$1B of net cash, plus or minus US$2B, and never less than US$5B of cash through the cycle.⁴ The 2022 and 2023 history shows why it matters: in those years free cash flow was US$1.09B and US$0.10B while gold sold for under US$2,000, and debt rose to US$8.9B at the end of 2023 as the Newcrest deal closed.¹⁴¹⁵ A miner that can wait out a low gold price can also buy assets from one that can’t.

Where the protection stops

It stops at the price of gold, and at costs. Nothing in this section protects Newmont from a fall in gold or a rise in cost. AISC went from US$880 in 2016 to US$1,609 in 2025, and the company’s guide for 2027 says unit costs will rise again.⁷²⁴ The cost of a pound of diesel, an Australian dollar or a wage settlement is set by the world. Even the by-product number, which I like, depends on copper and silver prices that the company does not control. Protection that works for a company with pricing power does not work here. What the scale does is give Newmont a better chance than a smaller miner of being the one that survives a bad price, and that is a real advantage but a different one.

IIIThe competitive advantage

The last section asked whether Newmont can keep what it earns. This one asks whether it earns more than the next miner. I compared it with the one rival I could read for the same quarter.

What the numbers say

On cost, Newmont is level with Agnico Eagle, not better. Newmont guides US$1,520 an ounce for 2026 by-product AISC and Agnico guides US$1,400 to US$1,550 and says it will land near the upper end.⁴⁸ Newmont’s own result so far is lower, US$1,365 for the nine months, but that figure includes a first-quarter US$1,029 helped by by-product credits and copper at US$5.68 a pound.⁴ The fourth quarter is guided at US$1,900, the highest of the year, because sustaining capital is highest in the quarter and silver at Peñasquito halves.⁴ So the fair statement is that Newmont’s cost is in the same band as the best of its large peers, not below it.

On quality of ounces, Agnico’s are in Canada, Australia and Finland. Newmont’s are spread wider, and a bigger part sits in places with more risk: Ghana and Papua New Guinea are 21% of nine-month sales, Peru and Mexico 24%, Suriname and Argentina 9% C (calculated).³ The rest is Australia (24%), the United States (17%) and Canada (6%) C (calculated).³ I do not mark these as bad. A mine in Ghana earns a return Canada cannot offer. I note them because the rules in these places change. Ghana’s stability agreement expired on 31 December 2025, the cap on corporate tax went from 32.5% to 35%, and in March 2026 Parliament set a royalty of 5% to 12% of gold revenue that rises with the gold price. Ahafo was 12% of the nine-month sales.³

On what an ounce earns, the copper and silver credits are the difference. The credit was US$504 an ounce for the nine months. That is 27% of the co-product cost C (calculated), and it moves with two prices that have nothing to do with gold.⁴ I treat the credit as a lucky margin and not as a durable edge. In my base I use the company’s guidance prices for copper and silver and not today’s higher copper price, which is worth about US$3 a share against using spot.

The next best use of the same dollar

The ten-year Treasury pays 4.90% with no risk to the money.⁶ My base case returns 3.0% a year on $118.15 and my bull 13.0% E (estimate). Franco-Nevada, the closest gold name I have valued, has no debt, 44 employees and a margin above 90%, and its 30 October price was 73% above my base for it. On this page the price is 42% above base. Both are above their base values. The difference is that a royalty company gets the extra gold price without the extra cost, and a miner doesn’t; at a higher gold price, Newmont’s cost rises with it, because royalties and wages follow.

IVManagement

Natascha Viljoen, 55, has been president and chief executive since 1 January 2026 and sits on the board. She was chief operating officer from October 2023, president from May 2025, and before that chief executive of Anglo American Platinum. She has more than 30 years in mining.⁹ She succeeded Tom Palmer, who had been at Newmont for more than twelve years and retired on 31 December 2025.⁹¹⁶ Mark Rodgers, 62, became chief operating officer on 1 July 2026; he ran the Africa, Asia and Pacific business before that and came from Rio Tinto and BHP. David Thornton, 45, who ran the Americas, became chief technical officer the same day after François Hardy retired on 30 June.¹⁰¹⁷ Peter Beaven, BHP’s chief financial officer from 2015 to 2021, joined the board on 1 September 2026.¹⁸

Two things stand out. First, the top of the company has changed in 16 months. A new chief executive, a new operating chief, a new finance chief, a new technical chief and a new director with a finance background, in a year when the company dealt with a seismic event at Cadia, a drought at Lihir, and a new arrangement in Nevada. Second, the chief financial officer’s job was held on an interim basis by the chief legal officer, Peter Wexler, for almost a year, from the resignation of Karyn Ovelmen on 11 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.⁹¹⁰ Brian Tabolt, who had been the chief accounting officer since December 2024 and was interim finance chief once before, in 2022, took the job on 1 July 2026.¹⁰ A year without a permanent finance chief, in a year of record cash flow and large capital decisions, is not a sign of trouble in the numbers. It is a gap in the chair.

How they are paid, and what that pays them to do

Palmer’s 2025 pay was US$15.6M in the proxy’s summary table. That was 187 times the US$83,771 median employee.⁹ The annual bonus is 70% on financial measures, led by a cost-per-ounce measure at 35%, and 30% on safety and sustainability.⁹ The long-term award is performance units that vest after three years. In the 2025 plan 60% of the units depend on total shareholder return against a peer group, at target for the 55th percentile, and 30% on return on capital employed; vesting is capped at 100% if the absolute return is negative; and the total payout is capped at four times the target. The proxy also describes a cut in the lowest payout for relative return to 40%, after holder feedback.⁹ Rodgers’ package is a US$800,000 salary, a 105% bonus target, performance units of 200% of salary, restricted units of 100% and a one-off US$650,000 restricted award vesting over three years.¹⁰

What does that pay them to do? Beat other gold miners, and keep unit costs down. Both are reasonable. Neither pays for free cash flow per share or for returns above a stated cost of capital, apart from the 30% weight on return on capital. And a plan based on rank against peers pays much the same whether gold is US$2,000 or US$5,000, since all peers rise and fall with it. It does not reward a decision to hold cash or skip a bad deal unless the peers did the opposite.

How much of their own money is in

Not much. At 16 March 2026 the directors and executive officers as a group held 678,345 shares, under 1% of the stock, which is about US$80M at $118.15 C (calculated).⁹ Palmer held 119,855, Viljoen 41,702, Peter Toth 34,479 and Wexler 39,388 counting units.⁹ Those are real sums to the people, and small against a company worth US$123B. The company asks executives to reach a minimum holding over five years, and they count unvested time-based units but not performance units.⁹ For a company of this size the pattern is normal. It is not the pattern of an owner-operator.

What they did with capital over a full cycle

In the ten years to 2025 Newmont generated US$22.8B of free cash flow, paid US$9.4B in dividends and bought back US$5.2B of stock C (calculated).¹⁴ Weighted diluted shares went from 532M to 1,108M, a rise of 108%, because it paid for two big mergers with stock, and the share count is now 1,039M after buybacks.¹⁴³ Free cash flow per share rose only 2.1 times while the gold price rose 2.8 times.

On the whole the record is mixed and improving. The two stock mergers made the company bigger and not obviously better per share: free cash flow per share in 2025 was US$6.59, against US$3.11 in 2016, with gold up 2.8 times C (calculated). The dividend was too high in 2022 and 2023, and it was reset. What was done in 2025 and 2026 is much better: selling the weaker mines, cutting debt, and returning cash by buyback. But buybacks need a test, and I apply it. If my base value of $83 is right, the shares bought in September at US$123.85 were bought for 49% more than they were worth, and each such dollar gave existing holders less than a dollar. If gold stays above US$4,900 the buyer was right. The company is making a bet on gold with its own shareholders’ cash, and the bet is not small: US$5.2B in nine months.

VFinancials

The income statement is easy to read and the cash flow statement tells more. Four things need explaining first.

• Revenue follows the gold price and the ounces sold. Gold sold at US$1,243 in 2016 and US$3,498 in 2025, so revenue rose 3.4 times while output rose 20%.⁷²
• Net income is noisy. There were losses in 2016, 2017, 2022 and 2023, from impairments, tax charges and deal costs, and 2023 included impairments, the Peñasquito strike and the abandonment of a leach plant there. Operating cash flow was positive every year.¹⁴¹⁵
• AISC is not an accounting number. It is the company’s own measure, and its definition has changed. For this reason the cost row in the table mixes three definitions, noted under the chart.
• Equity investments are not in sales. Pueblo Viejo and Lundin Gold appear as income from affiliates, US$496M in nine months, and as cash they send back, US$178M in the third quarter alone.³⁴

The third quarter

Sales were US$6.36B, up 15%. Gold sales were US$5.23B, silver US$550M, copper US$288M and zinc US$258M.³ The company sold 1.21 million ounces of gold at an average US$4,317 and produced 1.30 million attributable ounces. Adjusted EBITDA was US$3.95B and operating cash flow US$2.77B, after US$565M went into working capital: receivables rose US$318M, reclamation spending was US$256M, and inventories grew US$172M.⁴ Free cash flow was US$1.91B. The company paid US$858M of income and mining tax in the quarter.⁴ Sustaining capital was US$525M and development capital US$354M. Over nine months the company spent US$714M on reclamation, US$531M of it on water treatment plants at Yanacocha, and says the spending will fall by about US$200M a year through 2028.⁴

What an owner can really take out

Reported earnings and what an owner can take out differ. Adjusted net income in the last twelve months was US$10.46B, and adjusted EBITDA US$17.4B.⁴ Operating cash flow was US$13.1B, and cash capital spending US$3.02B, leaving free cash flow of US$10.07B C (calculated). Stock pay is a cost. It was US$99M in 2025 and is already in profit, so I take it out of cash flow C (calculated).¹⁴ Partners in Merian take a share, which I put at about US$200M a year E (estimate). That leaves about US$9.8B of owner cash in the last twelve months E (estimate), which is 93% of adjusted net income and 56 cents of each EBITDA dollar C (calculated). The conversion is better than for most miners because of low debt and a large share of earnings from by-products and affiliates. I use the stricter measure, after development capital too, which was US$1.17B in the twelve months, because a mine has to replace the ounces it digs C (calculated).⁴ Before development capital, owner cash would be about US$10.9B C (calculated).

Two adjustments run the other way. Working capital took US$0.8B out of the twelve months, mostly cash tax on 2025’s higher profits, and may partly return.⁴ And all of the twelve months were at an average realized gold price near US$4,460 C (calculated), while spot is US$4,073. At my base, 2027 free cash flow is US$6.3B E (estimate), 37% below the twelve months. The gap is about gold (US$0.5B a year before tax for each US$100 an ounce, on the company’s sensitivity), copper and silver credits at guidance prices, a 5% rise in unit costs, and US$0.8B more capital. At $118.15, the market value of US$123B is 12.6 times the trailing owner cash and 19 times my 2027 figure C (calculated).

Balance sheet

At 30 September Newmont had US$8.83B of cash, US$5.30B face value of debt (US$5.09B on the balance sheet), US$0.50B of leases, and US$6.10B of long-term reclamation liabilities. None of the debt falls due before 2029: US$265M in 2029, US$655M in 2030 and US$4.38B after.³ Total assets were US$58.2B; property and mine development US$33.9B, goodwill US$2.7B, investments US$4.1B.³ Net cash was US$3.24B. Two things are not in that number: the US$1.95B for Barrick in the fourth quarter and the US$451M of buybacks settled in October.⁴³ After both, net cash is about US$0.84B C (calculated), a little under the US$1B target. The company also declared a US$0.26 dividend, payable on 21 December; at US$1.04 a year the yield is 0.9% C (calculated).⁴

The one number that a balance sheet understates is the cost of closing the mines. The reclamation liability of US$6.1B is a present value; it was US$6.3B at the end of 2025.³ I treat the cash spending as a cost every year in my model, US$650M in 2027, falling to US$450M, and I show what happens if it does not fall below US$850M.

How the shares have traded

The shares closed at US$36.49 on 7 November 2016 and at $118.15 on 4 November 2026, which is 3.2 times, plus dividends C (calculated).¹¹¹ Gold futures rose 3.1 times over the same period C (calculated).¹¹⁵ The stock peaked at US$135.14 on 25 August 2026 and is 13% below it; gold peaked on 29 January at US$5,318 and is 23% below.¹¹⁵ So the shares have done better than gold since January: they are up 18% in the year to date, against gold down 6% C (calculated).¹¹¹ Part of the reason is the cost improvement and the buyback. Another part is a closing move: the stock rose 9.9% on 4 November, when gold futures rose 3.4%.¹⁵ I did not find a news item that explains it.

VIValuation

First, how this goes badly wrong

Before the numbers, I asked what would most likely ruin this investment, and worked back. Three things stand out.

• Gold falls and stays down, while costs do not. The average realized price went from US$1,792 in 2022 to US$3,498 in 2025, and futures reached US$5,318 on 29 January 2026 before falling 23%.¹⁵²⁵ Nothing in a mine’s cost falls with it quickly: diesel, wages, the Australian dollar and royalties are set elsewhere, and the all-in sustaining cost went from US$1,211 in 2022 to US$1,609 in 2025.² Newmont’s 2026 free cash flow rests on a margin of US$2,677 an ounce for nine months. At US$2,500 gold the margin over my 2027 all-in sustaining cost is under US$800 an ounce, and after growth capital and tax there is little left.
• The company buys at the top. It paid US$123.85 a share for stock in September, US$1.95B to Barrick in the fourth quarter, and decides in early 2027 on a US$4.2B to US$4.8B mine.³⁴ The record shows a company that paid mostly in stock for Goldcorp and Newcrest when gold sold for US$1,399 and US$1,954, and paid cash for its own shares when gold was above US$4,000. If gold falls, the cash is gone and the projects and the buybacks look worse together.
• A mine or a country goes wrong. Cadia’s output fell by about two thirds in the second quarter of 2026 from a seismic event, Lihir faces a drought, and the company has US$6.1B of reclamation liabilities, a Ghana royalty that Parliament set on a sliding scale of 5% to 12% in March, and Peru, Mexico, Ghana and Papua New Guinea, which were 45% of nine-month sales C (calculated).³⁴² A single large event costs a year of output at one mine. A change in tax or licence terms costs a share of every year.

None of these needs anything strange to happen. They set my bear case, and they explain why I start from the cash an owner can take out and not from a multiple of earnings.

How I built it

I model Newmont’s gold and by-product sales mine by mine in the aggregate, not one asset at a time. Each year has a gold price, a consolidated volume of gold sold, and a volume of copper, silver, lead and zinc taken from the company’s own price sensitivities: 109 thousand tonnes of copper, 25 million ounces of silver, 91 thousand tonnes of lead and 227 thousand tonnes of zinc.⁴ I cut silver, lead and zinc by 15% from 2027 because the company says Peñasquito will make less.⁴ Silver is one seventy-fifth of gold, the 2026 guidance ratio. Copper is US$5.00 a pound in my base, rising 2% a year.

Costs start at the 2026 total of about US$8.3B of costs applicable to sales (nine months of US$6.17B plus my US$2.1B for the fourth quarter) and move with volume (half the costs fall or rise with ounces sold), with inflation of 5% in 2027 and 3% after, and with the company’s sensitivity of US$6 an ounce for each US$100 on gold, for royalties.³⁴ Exploration and advanced projects (US$525M in 2026) and general and administrative expense (US$375M) rise with inflation. Tax is 33% of profit after depreciation (US$2.8B, rising 2.5%) and the accretion of reclamation liabilities (US$385M), which is the company’s guided adjusted rate.⁴ Sustaining capital is US$1.95B rising 2.5% a year. Development capital is US$1.9B for 2027 to 2029, as the company says it will be about US$500M higher in 2027, then falls to US$1.6B by 2031 and rises 2.5% a year. Reclamation cash is US$650M in 2027 and US$450M in 2028, then rises 3%, in line with the company’s plan to cut US$200M a year through 2028.⁴ The partners in Merian take about US$200M a year at the 2026 price, which I scale with gold. Pueblo Viejo and Lundin Gold add cash per ounce that I derive from their nine-month income of US$496M on 307,000 ounces.³

The result is owner cash: free cash flow after tax, all capital spending, reclamation spending and the partners’ share, before interest. I count the ten years 2027 to 2036, each year’s cash at year end, from 1 January 2027, then a tail of 25 years at the 2036 level and no growth. A gold mine does not run for ever, and the company’s 118.2 million ounces of reserves, at a gold price half today’s, are about 22 years of output. At my deck prices there would be more. A 25-year level annuity at 9% is a multiple of 9.8 times the 2036 figure, and a growing perpetuity at 1% would be 12.6 times. I show the effect of 15 and 40 years below.

To get from the business to a share I add the cash I expect at 1 January 2027: US$8.83B at 30 September, less US$451M of October buybacks, less US$1.95B for Barrick, plus US$1.65B of fourth-quarter free cash flow at the settle price E (estimate), less the US$0.27B dividend payable on 21 December. I deduct debt at face value, US$5.30B, and leases, US$0.50B. I add the two undeveloped joint ventures and the marketable shares at book, US$1.99B (Norte Abierto US$575M, NuevaUnión US$981M, shares US$434M), and the Nevada projects at the US$1.95B paid.⁴³ That gives a net US$5.95B on top of the cash flows. I divide by 1,042M shares: the 1,039,193,185 outstanding on 15 October plus about 3M for awards.³

The discount rate. I use 9.0%: the ten-year Treasury at 4.90% plus 4.1 points.⁶ That is 0.5 points above the 8.5% I use for Franco-Nevada and 1.0 below the 10.0% on my Cameco page. A royalty company has no operating risk. A miner does, along with country risk and a closure bill. It is a judgement, and the grid below shows what each point is worth.

What the price implies

At $118.15 the market value is US$122.8B, which is 12.6 times the last twelve months of owner cash and 19 times my 2027 figure C (calculated).¹³ On my numbers it is a business that pays about 8% of its price in owner cash on the best twelve months it has had, and 5% on my base for 2027. The Treasury pays 4.90%.

This is the most useful table on the page. To reach $118.15 on my base cash flows gold has to be near US$4,900 in 2027, 20% above the settle, and keep rising 2% a year. If costs behave better than I think, the figure is US$4,500. Or owners have to accept 5.7% a year, which is less than one point above a Treasury. That is a gold price that was seen in the first six months of 2026 and not since: the company realized US$4,900 in the first quarter and US$4,317 in the third.⁴ It is not absurd. It is a bet on the January level coming back and staying.

What I can’t judge

Two inputs decide this page, and I can’t know either. I don’t know where gold will trade in 2032. I don’t know what the next ounce will cost. So here are the grids. Read my $83 as one cell in them.

A US$1,000 move in gold at the middle of the grid is worth about US$43 a share. A 1-point change in rate is worth about US$7 to US$9. A 1-point change in the cost inflation rate is worth about US$6. The first is a bet on a price. The second is a bet on what an owner is willing to accept. The third is a bet on the world. They can move together: gold usually rises when the world is unsettled, and a miner’s costs rise with it.

Sensitivity

Three cases

Two things in the base path need saying out loud. My cost in 2027, US$1,762, is above the company’s 2026 guide of US$1,520 by 16%. Most of the rise, about US$240 an ounce, is lower credits, because I use the company’s guidance prices for copper and silver and not the 2026 realized ones, and I cut silver, lead and zinc volumes by 15%. About US$90 is the 5% inflation I put on 2027, which the company said is likely to be above its 3% assumption, less US$20 from lower royalties on a lower gold price. My formula also lands US$51 under the company’s guide for 2026.⁴ And free cash flow rises from US$6.3B to US$8.2B over the ten years in my base, a gain of 30% while gold rises 20% and output 7%, less the squeeze of costs.

Break-even

The model puts numbers on how low gold can go. On my 2027 cost base, free cash flow is zero at a gold price of about US$2,307, and it covers the fixed US$1.1B dividend at about US$2,614.⁴ Both are above the US$2,000 the company uses for its reserves and below the US$2,944 it realized in the first quarter of 2025. The company can pay for a good deal of gold falling. What it cannot do is pay for the share price to stay where it is: at US$3,000 gold the stock is worth $38 on my base cost path, 68% less than $118.15.

Other uses of the same dollar

The ten-year Treasury pays 4.90% with no risk to the money.⁶ My base returns 3.0% a year at this price, my bull 13.0% and my bear loses 16.0% a year E (estimate). The closest alternative on this site is Franco-Nevada, which gets paid on the same gold without digging it, carries no debt and, at its 30 October price, was 73% above my base value for it. Newmont is 42% above its own. Both prices are above my base values, so each needs gold to rise. The difference is the cost side: a miner’s costs rise with gold; a royalty’s do not.

The margin of safety

• Price$118.15Close, Q4 2026 [1]
• Base value$83My estimate
• Margin-of-safety price$65Base earns about 12% a year

I set the margin of safety at $65, the price at which my base case earns about 12% a year, three points above the 9% I require. That is 22% under my base value. I chose a return and not a discount to base because I do not trust my base to the cent: it rests on a gold price I cannot forecast. At $65, gold 20% under my deck for good would still return about 3% a year E (estimate); at today’s price it would lose about 4% a year. I did not set the price to guard against a collapse to US$2,500, which my bear case shows would lose most of the money at any price near today’s.

Two different questions

How good is the business, and how good is the price? On the first, I find the largest gold miner in the world, with US$8.8B of cash, a free cash flow margin of 38% of revenue in the last twelve months, 22 years of reserves at the company’s price, and a record that has improved in the last two years C (calculated).⁴² It is a good business of its kind, and its kind is a hard one: it sells a commodity at a price it cannot set to a world that keeps changing its costs. On the second, the price at $118.15 is 42% above my base value, inside my range, and I see it as paying for a gold price above today’s. Good business, hard industry, and a price that needs more gold. These are three separate things, and I would not blur them.

Where this could be in 5 and 10 years

Value at a date is the present value then, at 9%, of the free cash flow after it, per today’s 1,042M shares, in that year’s dollars. It leaves out today’s net cash and buybacks. The last column assumes someone buys at $118.15, collects all the free cash flow as it is paid, and sells at the 2036 value.

Why, in plain words. For the base to stand, gold has to stay near today’s futures price after inflation, output has to reach about 5.2 million ounces by 2029 as the company says it can, and costs have to rise no more than 3% a year after 2027. At $118.15 the stock then returns 3.0% a year, which is below the 4.90% on a ten-year Treasury. To earn 9% a year on the cash flows alone, the price would have to be near US$78 E (estimate), or gold higher. Even with gold 20% above my deck for good, today’s price returns about 8.3% a year E (estimate).

The single most likely way my base is wrong is gold. At US$3,000 it falls to $38, and at the January record of US$5,318 it rises to $137. The second is cost. If unit costs are 10% above my path every year, the base falls to $76. A reader’s guide. These are estimates of value, not forecasts of the share price, and the price can sit above or below value for years.

VIIThe case for the price

What most people miss

Three things cut in the company’s favour. First, reserves are counted at US$2,000 gold, less than half of today’s price. A US$100 higher assumption adds 6.4 million ounces, and the company will recalculate at 31 December 2026.² Second, some cash does not show in sales: Pueblo Viejo and Lundin Gold sent back US$178M in the third quarter, and two undeveloped Chilean joint ventures sit on the books at US$1.56B with 15.9 million ounces of reserves that I give no production to.³² Third, the dividend is a fixed US$1.1B, divided by a falling share count, which is down about 10% since February 2024.⁴

The bull case

In plain words: gold has found a higher level, the company earns about US$2,200 an ounce over its all-in sustaining cost at today’s gold price and the nine-month co-product cost C (calculated), it makes about US$10B of free cash flow a year, and it is buying back about 6% of its shares a year at the 2026 pace. Production grows from 2027, and Red Chris starts a second leg.⁴

The company says much of this. Viljoen said on 22 October that Newmont is on track for 2026 production, has improved its cost outlook, made US$1.9B of free cash flow in the quarter and returned US$1.9B since the last call.⁴ BlackRock held 8.70% at 31 March 2025, per its filing quoted in the 2026 proxy.⁹ A holding is not a reason. I found no dated analyst note I could verify, so I name none.

Against reality

Today’s numbers support part of it. Production is on track, 3.90 million ounces in nine months against a guide of 5.26 million. Costs are down, with the by-product guide cut to US$1,520. Free cash flow is the best the company has reported, US$10.1B in twelve months C (calculated).⁴ What is missing is the price. Gold futures closed above US$4,900 on 35 of 212 days in 2026, and the monthly average fell from US$5,036 in February to US$4,121 in October C (calculated).⁵ The company guides a fourth-quarter AISC of US$1,900 and says 2027 unit costs will rise.⁴ If gold stays above US$4,900 and rises 2% a year, if unit costs rise no faster than 3% after 2027, and if output reaches 5.2 million ounces by 2029 with Red Chris on budget, then $118.15 is possible. My bull case gets past it, at $159. Today the score is: output on track, 2026 costs on track, gold no, 2027 costs no, Red Chris not yet decided.

Multiply it out. Gold above US$4,900 through 2029: 25%, since it did so on 17% of days this year and the trend is down. Costs on my path: 60%. Output and Red Chris on plan: 65%. Together about 10% if independent E (estimate); they are not, since high gold lifts costs, so I would not go above 15%. The 25% I give my bull case in the weighted value of $87 is, if anything, generous, and that value is still 35% under the price.

What a 10x would take. Ten times $118.15 is $1,182, about US$1.23 trillion of market value. At today’s 12.6 times owner cash that needs about US$98B of owner cash, against US$9.8B now C (calculated). On my 2036 base each US$1,000 of gold adds about US$3.8B of free cash flow, so that is gold near US$28,000 an ounce, or gold at US$8,000 and about 26 million ounces a year, five times today’s output E (estimate). At today’s owner cash margin of 37% that is revenue of about US$267B, ten times the US$26.6B now, at an unchanged multiple C (calculated). And by when: ten years would mean 26% a year. The shares rose 3.2 times in the last ten years, gold rose 3.1 times, and Newmont is already the largest gold company in the world C (calculated).¹¹¹⁵ Tenfold from US$123B has not happened to any gold company I know of, and I did not search systematically. For a company this size and in this industry it is close to impossible, and I would put the odds below 1 in 100.

Where I come down

Lower debt, a better dividend rule, the 22 October cost guide and the settlement with Barrick moved me; without them my base would be lower than $83. The price did not move me, because it already assumes more gold than my base. A reserve price above US$2,000 at the year-end update, or a 2027 cost guide that holds the line, would raise my values most, though neither changes what gold does.

VIIIRisks, and what would change my view

The three ways this goes badly wrong are at the start of Valuation. These are the rest.

• The partner. Nevada Gold Mines is 17% of sales and Newmont does not run it. Barrick operates it. The August agreement settled their disputes, changed governance, and brings in Fourmile and the Newmont projects. It also lets Barrick offer some assets to the public, and the filing does not say which.¹³³
• Closure. The reclamation liability is US$6.1B, of which Yanacocha’s water plants are US$1.8B in total with US$1.3B already spent.³⁴ The cash falls US$200M a year through 2028 in the company’s plan. If it does not, my base falls by about US$3 a share.
• Cost. Each 5% on costs is US$4 a share; each US$10 on oil is about US$110M a year, and each 5 US cents on the Australian dollar is US$100M, per the company.⁴ The company already says 2027 costs rise.
• People. A new chief executive in January, a new operating, finance and technical chief in July, and a board with a new former BHP finance chief, in a year with big capital decisions.⁹¹⁰¹⁸
• Capital allocation. The company paid US$123.85 a share for stock in September and is deciding on a US$4.2B to US$4.8B mine in early 2027, at the same time. If gold falls, both will have been done at a higher price than the gold price supports.
• Working capital and tax. Cash tax follows profit with a lag. The company says that if gold stabilises, higher tax payments on earlier profits may hurt 2027 free cash flow.⁴

Geopolitical risk, and what it means for the value

Newmont mines in twelve countries. By nine-month sales, Australia was 24%, the United States 17%, Mexico 15%, Ghana 12%, Papua New Guinea 9%, Peru 9%, Canada 6%, Suriname 5% and Argentina 4% C (calculated).³ The two parts of the world I watch most are Ghana, where the stability agreement ended on 31 December 2025 and Parliament set a royalty of 5% to 12% tied to the gold price in March 2026, and Papua New Guinea, where Lihir is a single mine on a single island.³ I found no Russian or Iranian interest. Mexico had a strike at Peñasquito in 2023. Governments, courts and tax authorities decide most of this, not markets.

I ran each scenario through my model by scaling the present value of operating cash flow, US$81B in my base, by the operation’s share of segment profit before tax in the nine months. The odds are my guesses, with the basis shown. The bigger point is what is already in the price. At $118.15 the price needs gold near US$4,900 in 2027. Wars and sanctions can lift gold; the company says its realized price fell from the first quarter to the third.⁴ So some of the market’s case is a bet on more geopolitical stress. What the price does not include is a country-specific loss or a higher tax rate: those would come on top.

The table makes one thing plain. Country risk, even when it hits, is worth a few dollars a share. A fall in gold to US$2,500 is worth US$67. That is the point of owning mines in twelve countries. The real concentration is in one price. Two further risks sit in the filings: the Nevada Gold Mines venture, now with a new governance agreement and Barrick’s consent to an offering of unnamed assets, and tailings work at Cadia and Boddington, which is why the company says sustaining capital will stay near US$1.95B in 2027.³⁴