Should You Sell Your Coeur Mining Stock Now?
You own Coeur Mining (CDE), and on September 23 the stock fell 5.7% while the S&P 500 slipped 0.7%. The worry is whether to sell before it falls further. Here is what is known. Coeur’s last quarterly report showed record revenue, driven in large part by two recently acquired mines, New Afton and Rainy River. The real question is whether those two mines catch up to plan, and what you could lose while they try.
Coeur’s New Mines Are Already Paying Their Way
Coeur’s two new mines already bring in a large share of its cash. Free cash flow is the cash left after running the mines and paying to develop them. In the second quarter of 2026, Coeur’s free cash flow reached a record $388 million. The two new Canadian mines supplied about $175 million of it.
Coeur as a whole is highly profitable. Over the past twelve months, Coeur kept 36% of its revenue as operating profit, against 18.6% for the S&P 500. Operating profit is what is left after mining costs and overheads, before interest and taxes.
Management expects about $1.5 billion of free cash flow for all of 2026. That would equal about 7.5% of Coeur’s $19.9 billion market value. The forecast already assumes lower metal prices in the second half. Coeur is earning that cash while both new mines are still short of full speed.
Why Are Coeur’s New Mines Running Behind Plan?
The new mines are behind plan because ore is coming out more slowly than first assumed. At New Afton, ore output can only rise as fast as the mine’s underground cave grows. Coeur now expects the mine to reach 16,000 tonnes a day early in the fourth quarter. The plan Coeur inherited had it there by the end of the second quarter.
Rainy River has a similar problem underground. Coeur now expects that underground mine to reach 5,000 tonnes a day by year-end, not in the third quarter. The delay matters because its underground ore holds almost three times as much metal per tonne as the open pit.
Coeur’s shares cost 23.4 times the past year’s earnings, close to 22.4 for the S&P 500. That price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E, is the share price divided by a year of profit per share. Those earnings include the first full quarter from New Afton and Rainy River. Both mines were still ramping up then. That quarter’s earnings were also cut by a $140 million non-cash charge from accounting for the purchase of the two mines. If the wider market turns, the stock’s own history shows what a bad stretch can cost.
How Much Could A Bad Stretch Cost You?
Coeur’s worst recent fall came in the 2022 inflation shock, when its shares lost 49%. Each fall here is measured from the stock’s peak to its low within that shock. The S&P 500 fell 24% in the same shock. A $10,000 holding at that peak was worth about $5,100 at the low.
Milder market shocks have hurt too. In the 2023 bond-yield shock, Coeur fell 38% while the S&P 500 fell 9.5%. Coeur has fallen further than the index in all five recent market shocks.
Coeur’s own finances are not the weak point. The company ended June with $1.1 billion in cash, double its level at the end of 2025. Its debt equals just 3.6% of its market value, against 21% for the S&P 500. So the risk to you is the share price, not Coeur’s ability to pay its bills.
The next few months will show which way the new mines go. New Afton is due to reach its 16,000-tonne daily rate early in the fourth quarter. Rainy River’s underground is due to reach 5,000 tonnes a day by year-end.
If both arrive on time, the risk hanging over the new mines shrinks. The $1.5 billion cash forecast would also stay on track. A second delay in the same year would tell you the new mines are harder to run than Coeur planned. Such a delay would also put that cash forecast in doubt.
How To Act On CDE?
