US markets rise, Jan. 21-25: Yamana, Iamgold and Freeport McMoRan

The gold price rose 1.66% to US$1,302.60. The Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index rose 4% to 71.17, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.12% to 24,737.20. The S&P 500 Index fell 0.22% to 2,664.76.

Shares of Yamana Gold rose 11.3% to US$2.57. The company produced 940,600 oz. gold in 2018, exceeding its full-year guidance by 20,600 oz. gold. It produced 270,200 oz. gold in the fourth quarter of 2018 alone. The company also exceeded its copper and silver production guidance, producing 8.02 million oz. silver and 129 million lb. copper, above an expected 7.55 million oz. silver and 125 million lb. copper.

The Canadian Malartic gold mine produced 348,600 oz. gold in 2018 attributable to Yamana, more than double the company’s next highest gold producing asset. The company’s silver mines, El Penon and Cerro Moro, both produced roughly 4 million oz. silver. The company has not yet announced its full-year financial results, but says costs came in line with, or better than, guidance.

Shares of Iamgold rose 9.2% to US$3.09. The company achieved the upper end of its 2018 production guidance, producing 882,000 oz. gold, including 231,000 oz. gold in 2018’s fourth quarter. The company has not yet announced its 2018 financials, but expects total cash costs and all in sustaining costs to come in at the upper end of its 2018 guidance, near US$800 per oz. gold produced and US$1,070 per oz. gold sold.

The company expects lower production in 2019, between 810,000 oz. gold and 870,000 oz. gold, with US$765 to US$815 per oz. gold cash costs and US$1,030 to US$1,080 per oz. gold all-in sustaining costs. It says both cash costs and all-in sustaining costs should trend downward in the second half of the year.

The company will announce its 2018 full-year financials in mid-February. It recently announced that it will not proceed to construction at its Cote gold project, citing unsustainable market conditions.

Shares of Freeport McMoRan fell 10.5% to US$11.24. The company produced less copper and gold, albeit more molybdenum, in Q4 2018 than it did in the same quarter of the previous year; its copper production fell from 1 billion lb. to 841 million lb. and its gold production fell from 567,000 oz. to 334,000 ounces.

However, Freeport produced more copper and gold overall in 2018 than it did in 2017. It produced 3.8 billion lb. copper in 2018 compared to 3.7 billion lb. copper in 2017 and 2.4 million oz. gold in 2018 compared to 1.5 million oz. gold in 2017.

The company reported a US$9 million net loss from continuing operations in 2018’s fourth quarter compared to a US$1.19 billion gain over the same period in the previous year; it also reported a US$62 million loss in operating cash flow compared to $1.6 billion gain the previous year. Overall, the company’s operating cash flow fell from US$4.6 billion in 2017 to US$3.86 billion in 2018. The company has US$4 billion in cash and US$11 billion in debt.