What Would You Have Needed To Notice In Newmont Stock?
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.
Investors who missed out on Newmont (NEM) missed a 53.1% return in the twelve months to November 5, 2026, compared with 9.9% for the S&P 500. During that stretch, the gold miner’s twelve-month operating margin reached its highest level in data going back to 2016. Yet the shares had already risen 45.6% in the six months before November 4, 2025. So what had Newmont already shown investors by then?
What Newmont Said About Costs In February 2025
Management made costs its theme during the February 20, 2025, call covering fourth-quarter 2024 results. The market sets the price for an ounce of gold, while management controls what it costs to produce one. The gap between the two is the profit. On that call, management said all-in sustaining costs were expected at around $1,620 an ounce for its core portfolio. That figure is management’s own cost measure for each ounce, covering what it takes to keep the mines running.
Management was also blunt about overhead, saying general and administrative costs were too high for the mines the company planned to keep. Management tied that to a plan to trim the portfolio, adding that Newmont had generated $2.9 billion of free cash flow in 2024. A miner that names its cost per ounce provides a figure to check against every quarterly report that follows.
How Newmont’s Margin Built Through 2025
The subsequent quarterly filings showed profit growing faster than sales. Newmont reported a 40.2% operating margin in the quarter ended March 2025, detailed in its April 24 filing. The margin widened to 45.5% in the June quarter. In the quarter ended September 2025, filed on October 23, the margin reached 47.4%, compared with 28.2% a year earlier.
On that same day, the company said free cash flow had topped $1 billion for a fourth straight quarter, a streak that included a third-quarter record of $1.6 billion. Management also said its program of selling assets was complete. Alongside its third-quarter results, Newmont improved its 2025 cost guidance. All of this was public before November 4, 2025, but the July and October reports came out during that six-month rise in the shares. A reader who followed them was right about the business. The stock had already moved, yet it still returned 53.1% in the twelve months from November 4, 2025.
How Far Did Newmont’s Margin Climb In Twelve Months?
Over the twelve months to September 2026, Newmont’s operating margin widened to 55.6%, up from 43.5% in the twelve months before. The company sold its gold at an average of $4,320 an ounce in the third quarter of 2026, and that quarter’s profit beat estimates on higher gold prices. At the end of September 2026, the shares traded at 13.1 times the past year’s earnings. That multiple was close to the 12.9 times recorded a year earlier, so over that year the shares rose about as fast as earnings rather than on a richer multiple.
The quarterly figures, however, show the margin narrowing. It reached 61.4% in the three months to March 2026 and has eased in both quarters since. At 50.0% in the September 2026 quarter, it was still above the 47.4% of a year earlier. On the October 22, 2026, call, management said it expects unit costs to trend higher in 2027, partly because silver output at Penasquito is expected to be roughly 30% lower than in 2026.
Newmont’s operating margin for the December 2026 quarter, in the report expected in February 2027, is the figure to watch.
Now You Know Newmont. Here Is A Better Way To Invest
Before you decide on NEM, consider owning 30 quality companies instead of one. The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio has returned 105% since its September 2020 launch, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P MidCap and Russell 2000.
Spot an error or want more like this? Tell us in 10 seconds.