Stronger Q1 2016 earnings coupled with the rising price of gold helped improve sentiment towards gold miners, driving the rally so far. Gold to outshine gold miners
Lower all-in sustaining costs are reflective of declining capital expenditure. While it boosts current profitability it is detrimental to sustaining the long term growth of gold miners.
For the gold miners rally to continue, the current pace of margin expansion will require gold prices to be at $1510 by Q2 2016.
Gold will likely reflect deterioration in economic or political uncertainty quicker than gold miners and hence we favour the metal versus the equity.
Gold miners tighten their belts too much too fast
Gold miners have skyrocketed since the start of the year, staging a 81.6% rally. That is the strongest 6-month rally we have seen in the sector. We believe stronger Q1 2016 earnings results coupled with the rising gold price improved sentiment, helping drive inflows towards this beleaguered sector. However, we believe the rally has run out of steam. For the purpose of this report gold miners refer to the constituents of the DAXglobal Gold Miner’s Total Return index.
The greatest success in gold miners’ financial restructuring has been a reduction of excessive debt loads. Gold miners’ debts became hard to service when gold prices were trading at a lower price. They have achieved the debt reduction by selling non-performing assets, rejecting future capital expenditure, reducing their workforce and cutting dividends. The chart below illustrates how record high debt levels dragged the performance of gold miners lower.
While reducing their debt has improved current operating margins and cash flow, it will come at the expense of future profitability. Gold miners’ production has been in decline since 2007. We believe there will come a point, when the aggressive debt reduction via postponement of future exploration projects and sale of non-performing assets will dent futuregrowth prospects.
Lower Capex detrimental to future profitability
In 2013 the World Gold Council (WGC) established a new cost disclosure framework by introducing “all-in sustaining costs” (AISCs) as an extension to cash costs. As the term implies, AISC focuses on all costs incurred in sustaining production for the complete mining lifecycle, from exploration to closure. AISC is currently at $857, well below its 5-year average of US$1019 and has been trending lower over the past four quarters. In response to declining gold prices over past years, capital expenditure has been curtailed extensively – 21% drop over the prior year. We believe the curtailment of capital expenditure is the chief reason behind the consistent decline in AISC. A stronger gold price environment in 2016 has widened the gulf between gold mining costs on an AISC basis and gold prices, boosting gold miner’s profitability by 80% on average over the prior quarter in Q1 2016. While declining capital expenditures translate into lower AISC, improving short term profitability, it comes at a cost to longer term growth.
Where does gold need to be to extend the miners current rally
Despite gold’s stellar performance, returning 19.3% so far in 2016, gold miners’ have clearly outperformed, returning 81.6% over the same time frame. Gold miners’ outperformance reflects the sectors’ inherent profit leverage on gold prices. Based on historic observations, the 55% y-o-y gain in the gold miners’ index implies that Q2 2016 profit margins will rise to 19%, up from 10% in Q1 2016. We are doubtful that profit margins have improved that much because, once again based on historic relationships, it would indicate a gold price of over US$1510/oz by the end of Q2 2016. We believe that gold miners’ prices look over-extended and we expect a pull-back based on fundamentals.
Gold miner’s valuations unfavourable
With a correlation of 0.72, rising gold prices have clearly been a catalyst for the rally in gold miners. Gold miners beta varies across the cycle with the beta at 1.44x (in a rising gold price environment), which is considerably lower than the beta when gold prices are falling.
The price to earnings ratio over Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 were at 60x and 51x respectively and has currently declined to 38x as earnings recovered more than prices rose. We believe more attention needs to be paid to other valuation metrics in this capital intensive industry. The price-to-book ratio (P/B) is a valuable metric as it incorporates the value of assets. P/B has risen in the past quarter as a 53% surge in asset write-downs and impairments have reduced the book value, without a commensurate reduction in the price. The price-to-book ratio increased to 2.4x in Q1 2016 from 1.4x in Q4 2015, which is above the 10-year average at 2.2x, highlighting that gold miners have become more expensive.
Gold miners have cut dividends on average by 38% over the prior year reducing their dividend yield to 0.83%, which is close the sector’s 10-year average of 0.87%. Taking into consideration gold miner’s annualised volatility of 84% is twice that of gold of 42%, we believe gold offers a much better risk adjusted return profile in comparison to gold miners. After posting the sharpest 6-month rally in history, we are of the opinion that the current rate of acceleration in the gold mining sector cannot continue indefinitely.
Mounting risks support gold
We believe that gold will likely reflect deterioration in economic or political uncertainty quicker than gold miners and hence we favour the metal versus the equity. Economic and political uncertainty is elevated with the vote on the EU referendum, the Spanish and US elections and slowing global growth, weighing on investors’ minds. Gold miners are exposed to a number of unknown risks such labour disputes, power outages, political upheavals and adverse currency movements that cannot be discounted. While gold miners have been prudent to reduce their debt, we believe the priority to clean up their balance sheets will come at the cost of futuregrowth opportunity. While rising gold prices and falling AISC have provided the dual benefit of improving gold miner’s profitability. We caution against being too optimistic over falling AISC as it is more reflective of declining capex which will likely to impact future profitability. From a valuation perspective, we believe gold miners are moderately valued and don’t favour a compelling reason to buy at this point in time.
Important Information
General
This communication has been issued and approved for the purpose of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by ETF Securities (UK) Limited (“ETFS UK”) which is authorised and regulated by the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”).
The information contained in this communication is for your general information only and is neither an offer for sale nor a solicitation of an offer to buy securities.
En ny börshandlad råvara (ETC) från WisdomTree som ger tillgång till den europeiska energimarknaden för naturgas har varit omsättningsbar på Xetra och Börse Frankfurt sedan den 17 september 2024.
WisdomTree European Natural Gas ETC (EGAS)erbjuder investerare enkel och kostnadseffektiv tillgång till den europeiska marknaden för naturgas genom att investera i ICE Dutch TTF-terminskontrakt. Det holländska gaspriset TTF (Title Transfer Facility) är ett ledande europeiskt referenspris. Terminerna handlas på ICE.
Den börshandlade råvaran är en obligation som gör att investerare kan dra nytta av prisutvecklingen på naturgas utan att behöva fysiskt äga naturgas. Produkten är helt säkerställd.
Produktutbudet i Deutsche Börses XTF-segment omfattar för närvarande totalt 2 222 ETFer, 194 ETCer och 243 ETNer. Med detta urval och en genomsnittlig månatlig handelsvolym på cirka 16 miljarder euro är Xetra den ledande handelsplatsen för ETFer i Europa.
Den börshandlade fondens TER (total cost ratio) uppgår till 0,15 % p.a. Franklin Euro IG Corporate UCITSETF (Dis) är den enda ETF som följer Franklin Euro IG Corporate-index. ETFen replikerar det underliggande indexets prestanda genom full replikering (köper alla indexbeståndsdelar). Ränteintäkterna (kuponger) i denna ETF delas ut till investerarna (halvårsvis).
Denna ETF lanserades den 31 oktober 2023 och har sin hemvist i Irland.
Fonden strävar efter att ge intäkter från den europeiska företagsobligationsmarknaden samtidigt som den försöker bevara kapital. Fonden investerar huvudsakligen i företagsobligationer noterade i euro.
Handla EIGC ETF
Franklin Euro IG Corporate UCITSETF (Dis) (EIGC ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond. Denna fond handlas på flera olika börser, till exempel Deutsche Boerse Xetra och London Stock Exchange. Av den anledningen förekommer olika kortnamn på samma börshandlade fond.
Det betyder att det går att handla andelar i denna ETF genom de flesta svenska banker och Internetmäklare, till exempel DEGIRO, Nordnet, Aktieinvest och Avanza.
Amundi Japan Topix UCITSETF Daily Hedged USD (TPHU ETF) med ISIN LU1681037948, försöker följa TOPIX® (USD Hedged)-index. TOPIX® (USD Hedged)-index följer japanska aktier på TSE First Section-segmentet på Tokyobörsen, som omfattar de största börsvärdena. Valutasäkrad till US-dollar (USD).
Den börshandlade fondens TER (total cost ratio) uppgår till 0,48 % p.a. Amundi Japan Topix UCITSETF Daily Hedged USD är den enda ETF som följer TOPIX® (USD Hedged) index. ETFen replikerar resultatet för det underliggande indexet syntetiskt med en swap. Utdelningarna i denna ETF ackumuleras och återinvesteras.
Amundi Japan Topix UCITSETF Daily Hedged USD är en liten ETF med tillgångar på 22 miljoner euro under förvaltning. Denna ETF lanserades den 29 september 2015 och har sin hemvist i Luxemburg.
Investeringsmål
Amundi Japan Topix UCITSETF Daily Hedged USD försöker replikera så nära som möjligt utvecklingen av TOPIX-index, total bruttoavkastning, om trenden är stigande eller fallande och har en månatlig valutasäkring i USD. Denna ETF gör det möjligt för investerare att dra nytta av en exponering mot de viktigaste aktierna på den japanska marknaden.