A gold price correction does not sort miners by how hard the share fell on a down day. It sorts them by the gap between what an ounce costs to keep producing and the price the next quarter will actually realize.
This is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold Agnico Eagle, Lundin Gold, Alamos Gold, Kinross, IAMGOLD, or any other security. It is not investment advice and not a solicitation. Mines miss guidance. Countries change rules. Costs rise after the slide is written. You can lose money. The five names are a watchlist for a test. They are not a basket.
Here is the only idea. Gold’s October correction separates gold mining companies by the room between their cost and the new gold price, and by the cash they still have to spend. It does not separate them by which ticker fell hardest on Wednesday. The metal is about a quarter under its January high. At a spot price near 4,100 to 4,200 dollars, every name on this page still shows a gap over the last all-in sustaining cost it reported. That gap is not equal. A miner at roughly 1,200 dollars an ounce and a miner at roughly 2,300 dollars an ounce are not the same business once the realized price falls another few hundred dollars, or once the cost itself is rising. Canadian gold stocks will all be called “levered to gold” on a down day. The gold mining stocks outlook that matters is which of them still earn the ounce if the correction stops here, and which of them needed January’s price to fund the build they already approved.
What the correction actually is
Start with the metal, because the shares are a derivative of it. A closing high near 5,405 dollars was set on January 29, 2026, on one daily table. Other reports put the January peak above 5,500. Either figure leaves an October price in the low 4,000s about 23 to 25 percent under the high. That is the gold price correction. It is not a one-week story. September did a large share of the damage. One published comparison through September 25 had the big-miner fund, GDX, down about 9.3 percent over a month while the bullion fund, GLD, was down about 6.6 percent. GDX finished that month near 88 dollars after trading above 101 early in September. The shares fell more than the bar. That is normal. It is also not a verdict on which mine is sound.
October did not hand the loss back. On October 1 the spot price was still above 4,100, with Reuters near 4,159 late one New York morning. On Wednesday, October 14, the Financial Times had gold down about 2 percent at 4,075 after a hot inflation report. By Friday, October 16, screens were back near 4,160 to a morning futures print around 4,200, depending on the hour and the contract. A bounce inside a quarter-off-the-high is not the end of a correction. It is a week. Gold stock performance this week tracked that week. On Wednesday the TSX composite fell 1.1 percent to 35,584, and miners fell harder: Agnico Eagle down 4.6 percent, Barrick down 4 percent, Wheaton Precious Metals down 4.8 percent. Friday’s futures were firmer, and U.S.-listed Canadian miners were higher before the open. The same names were “weak” on Wednesday and “supported” on Friday. A sort that flips in forty-eight hours is a sort of the tape, not of the business.
The price that matters for the business is the price the next sales quarter will realize, not the price a headline uses. In the second quarter, realized prices at the companies below were in a band from about 4,360 to about 4,480 dollars an ounce. Friday’s spot is a few hundred dollars under that band. Margins reported for April through June were struck at a richer sale. The gold price correction shows up in the income statement one quarter late. Anyone who reads a record free-cash-flow line from the June quarter and treats it as the October run-rate has already missed the sort.
How gold price corrections affect mining stocks
A miner’s profit is the gold price minus the cost of getting the ounce out and keeping the mine able to do it again. When the price falls 10 percent and the cost does not, profit falls by more than 10 percent. That is operating leverage, and it is why gold mining stocks move more than gold. It is also why the direction of the cost matters as much as the direction of the price. A correction that arrives while costs are flat widens the gap between a cheap mine and a dear one. A correction that arrives while costs are rising does the job twice.
All-in sustaining cost is the industry’s attempt to count more than the cash spent digging. It aims to include the sustaining capital that keeps today’s ounces coming. It does not include every dollar. Growth capital, the shaft and the new pit and the camp, often sits outside it. So does the tax bill in some presentations, and the royalty in others, and the corporate office if the company is showing a mine-site figure. A gold stock to watch is not “low AISC” in the abstract. It is a low AISC that you can match to a sentence in the same release about what was left out. Compare a sustaining cost with a growth budget still to spend, and you are comparing a mine that is running with a mine that is still being paid for.
The second channel is the multiple. Shares are not only this year’s cash. They are a claim on ounces that will be sold in 2027 and 2028, and on a build that was sanctioned when gold was near the January high. If the market marks those future ounces at a lower price, the share can fall even when this quarter is still very profitable. That is why a company with a fat margin and a rising capital budget can be a weak stock in a correction, and a company with a thinner margin and no build can be a dull, surviving one. Weak and strong are not morals. They are the order in which the cash runs out, or the order in which the growth plan gets cut.
The third channel is the balance sheet, and it works slowly. A correction does not bankrupt a miner with net cash and a 2,000-dollar margin. It does force choices. Dividends and buybacks that were set as a percent of free cash flow shrink when free cash flow shrinks. Projects that were easy at a 4,500-dollar planning price get a second look at 4,100. The companies that approved the spend anyway, and raised the budget, are telling you they will live with a lower price. The companies that cannot fund the spend without the old price will show you later, in a guidance cut or a share issue. The October tape will not show you that. The next two reports might.
There is a fourth channel people skip. Royalties and taxes take a slice of the gold price, not of the margin. When the price falls, the royalty dollars per ounce fall too, which cushions the all-in cost at a high-royalty mine. When the price rises, the royalty takes more. A cost that looks ugly at 4,500 dollars can look less ugly at 4,100 for that reason alone, and the mine is not “improving.” Read the line that excludes royalties next to the line that includes them. IAMGOLD reports both. Most readers will quote only the worse one.
The five, as a cost ladder
These five are Canadian gold stocks in the sense that they list in Toronto and report in a way a Canadian reader can audit. They are not the five best, and they are not the five worst. They are five rungs. Lundin Gold sits low on sustaining cost and on a single mine. Agnico Eagle sits a step up, with scale, and with one pit that slipped. Alamos sits in the middle, with one district carrying the quarter and another district hurt by a seismic event. Kinross sits near Alamos on a gold-equivalent cost, with a large cash return and a cost print above its own full-year guide. IAMGOLD sits highest on the all-in figure, with a new mine whose cash costs are running above the band it told investors to expect.
A compilation of second-quarter reports put the median all-in sustaining cost of a broad producer set near 1,926 dollars an ounce, against a quarter in which the gold price used for that margin math averaged well above today’s spot. Against a Friday spot near 4,164, that median still left a gap of more than 2,000 dollars. The gap is the reason nobody on this list is a distress story at today’s price. The shape of the ladder is the reason they will not stay equally comfortable if the price goes to 3,500, or if the next cost print is 200 dollars higher. Gold stocks to watch in a correction are the ones whose rung you can name without a slogan.
Lundin Gold: the cheap ounce, and one country
Lundin Gold’s only producing mine is Fruta del Norte in southeastern Ecuador. In the second quarter it produced 118,994 ounces and sold 110,385 at an average realized price of 4,359 dollars. Cash operating cost was 1,016 dollars an ounce sold. All-in sustaining cost was 1,176. Revenue was 478 million dollars. Free cash flow was 96 million dollars in the quarter, after 293 million dollars of dividends and a 221 million dollar annual profit-sharing and tax payment. Cash at June 30 was 507 million dollars, down from 630 million at the end of 2025, mostly because that tax and dividend cash left. First-half free cash flow was about 445 million dollars. This is not a miner scraping by.
The third quarter, reported on October 8 as production only, was the strongest quarter since commercial production. The mine produced 153,736 ounces, against 122,086 a year earlier. The mill processed 535,711 tonnes, about 5,823 tonnes a day. Head grade was 10.1 grams per tonne. Recovery was 88.3 percent. Concentrate was 103,311 ounces and doré was 50,425. Through nine months, production was 392,472 ounces and sales were 374,019. The company said it expects to land inside 2026 guidance of 475,000 to 525,000 ounces, and that sales lagged production on timing, with most of the unsold ounces expected in the fourth quarter. A cost for the third quarter was not in that production note. Do not invent one. The 1,176 dollar sustaining cost is a June figure. The September ounces are a volume figure. Volume without a cost is half a sentence.
Why it is on the strong side of a correction, if costs hold: a sustaining cost near 1,200 dollars still clears a sale at 4,000 by a very wide mark. Grade near 10 grams is not a marginal pit. Cash of about half a billion dollars, after a large tax payment, is a buffer. Why it can still be the weak stock: one mine, one country, and a tax regime that already took 221 million dollars in a single quarter’s accounts. A political or a permitting shock does not care about your cost curve. A correction in the gold price is not Ecuador. A correction plus a country problem is a different loss. Watch the fourth-quarter sales catch-up, the next sustaining-cost print, and whether the dividend stays sized to a 4,100-dollar world rather than a 4,700-dollar one. The realized price in the first half was 4,662 dollars. That number will not repeat itself out of courtesy.
Agnico Eagle: scale, a slipped pit, and a bigger build
Agnico Eagle is the scale rung. In the second quarter, payable gold production was 855,816 ounces. Production cost was 1,114 dollars an ounce. Total cash cost was 1,054. All-in sustaining cost was 1,459. The realized gold price was 4,483 dollars. The company called free cash flow a record and did not need a slogan to make the margin obvious. First-half production was 1,680,925 ounces, down from 1,739,823 a year earlier. Full-year payable production is expected near the low end of 3.3 to 3.5 million ounces. Cash-cost guidance of 1,020 to 1,120 dollars and sustaining-cost guidance of 1,400 to 1,550 were left unchanged in the summer update. Fitch raised the long-term issuer rating to A- from BBB+ in April. A balance sheet that a rating agency moved up, in a year the share price later fell, is a fact about lenders. It is not a fact about the next quarter’s margin.
The sort inside Agnico is Canadian Malartic. On July 2 the company reported rock-mass movement at the Barnat pit. The redesign cuts second-half 2026 production by 60,000 to 80,000 ounces, and by as much as 150,000 ounces in each of 2027 and 2028. Cash costs at Malartic for 2026 are now expected near 1,260 dollars, against a prior 1,187. Company-wide cost guidance did not move. That can be true and still matter. A local cost increase absorbed by a large portfolio is how a strong miner hides a weak pit until the weak pit gets larger. Watch whether the “unchanged” company guide survives the second half, or whether Malartic’s missing ounces show up as a higher cost per ounce once the fewer ounces carry the same fixed dollars.
The other sort is Hope Bay. Capital spending for 2026, excluding capitalized exploration, was raised to 2.6 to 2.8 billion dollars, from 2.2 to 2.4 billion, because construction there was approved. Four hundred million dollars of extra spend, approved while the gold price was still far above October, is a choice to keep building through a correction. It can be the right choice if the project works at 4,000 dollars. It is a weaker choice if it was easy only at 5,000. This page does not have the Hope Bay model. It has the budget change. A gold mining stocks outlook for Agnico in this correction is not “the lowest cost major, so it is safe.” It is “the cost guide is intact, one pit is smaller for two years, and the build got more expensive.” Wednesday’s 4.6 percent drop did not answer any of those three. The next reserve and cost update might.
Alamos: one district carried the quarter
Alamos Gold produced 130,600 ounces in the second quarter, inside a revised quarterly range of 130,000 to 135,000, and 5 percent above the first quarter. The Island Gold District in Northern Ontario did the carrying. It produced a record 67,500 ounces. Underground mining rates averaged a record 1,550 tonnes a day. Mine-site all-in sustaining cost there was 1,715 dollars, and total cash cost was 1,304, both higher than a year earlier on labour, contractors, diesel, and power, partly offset by a weaker Canadian dollar. Island Gold’s full-year production guide was left at its original range. Its cost guide was not. Cash costs are now expected at 1,025 to 1,125 dollars, and mine-site sustaining costs at 1,550 to 1,650, because Northern Ontario labour and energy got tighter.
Young-Davidson did not carry anything. A seismic event in June cut mining rates. The company said the second half would see lower rates, a temporary production drop, and higher costs for rehabilitation and ground support. Mulatos in Mexico was also below what the company had wanted, including the timing of ounces at La Yaqui Grande. The consolidated result was a guidance cut. Full-year production moved to 510,000 to 560,000 ounces, from 570,000 to 650,000. Full-year cash costs moved to 1,175 to 1,275 dollars, from 1,020 to 1,120. Full-year all-in sustaining costs moved to 1,775 to 1,875 dollars. Young-Davidson’s own cash-cost band is now 1,750 to 1,850, up from 1,350 to 1,450. That is a 400-dollar increase at one mine, inside a company that still has a good district next door.
This is the cleanest picture of the theme on the list. Alamos is not a weak company having a weak quarter everywhere. It is a company whose strong mine is on track and whose other Canadian mine just became a high-cost, lower-volume operation for a while. A gold price correction taxes the second mine first. At a 4,100-dollar sale, a 1,800-dollar cash cost at Young-Davidson still shows a margin, and it shows a much thinner one than Island Gold. If the seismic rehab runs long, the company cost guide that was just raised can be raised again. If Island Gold hits the mining rate it described, toward 2,000 tonnes a day by year-end and 2,400 in early 2027 when the shaft is commissioned, the mix shifts back toward the better ounce. Watch the mix. A consolidated sustaining cost near 1,800 dollars is an average of a good district and a hurt one. Averages hide the sort the correction is trying to make.
Kinross: a wide margin, a cost above its own guide
Kinross reports in gold-equivalent ounces, and that unit is the first caution. An equivalent ounce mixes gold with other metals at a price ratio that moves. An all-in sustaining cost per equivalent ounce is not the same object as Lundin’s cost per gold ounce. Do not rank 1,821 dollars at Kinross against 1,176 at Lundin as if the denominators were identical. You can still read Kinross against its own guide.
In the second quarter the company reported attributable all-in sustaining cost of 1,821 dollars per gold-equivalent ounce sold. Attributable production cost of sales was 1,336 dollars. Attributable production was 492,326 gold-equivalent ounces in the write-up of the release. Total gold-equivalent production in the quarterly report was 501,341 ounces. Attributable free cash flow was 726.8 million dollars. Operating cash flow was 1,145.9 million. The company reported a margin of 3,131 dollars per equivalent ounce, up 42 percent from the second quarter of 2025. That margin lines up with a realized gold price in the mid-4,000s minus the production cost, not minus the all-in sustaining cost. Do not subtract 1,821 from 3,131 and call the result a sale price. The company also said it returned about 40 percent of free cash flow to shareholders, more than 600 million dollars year to date, including roughly 230 million dollars of buybacks in the quarter.
Full-year guidance is 2.0 million attributable gold-equivalent ounces, plus or minus 5 percent, at a production cost of sales near 1,360 dollars and an all-in sustaining cost near 1,730, each plus or minus 5 percent. The second-quarter sustaining cost of 1,821 sits above that 1,730 center. The company said it was still on track. “On track” with a first-half cost above the guide means the second half has to be cheaper, or the guide has to move. A correction makes the second path more likely if grades slip or if the other metals inside the equivalent ounce weaken. A market note on the same quarter put net cash near 1.9 billion dollars and said no debt matured before 2033. If that balance-sheet line holds in the filing, Kinross can fund a softer second half without visiting the equity market. Cash is the strong side. A cost that is already above the promise is the weak side. Both are true in the same report. The gold stock performance of the shares will pick one of them each morning. The business has to live with both.
IAMGOLD: the high rung, and a royalty that confuses it
IAMGOLD is the high rung, and it is not a broken one at today’s gold price. In the second quarter, all-in sustaining cost was 2,271 dollars per ounce sold. Excluding royalties, that sustaining cost was 1,918. Cash cost including royalties was 1,642. Cash cost excluding royalties was 1,289. Cost of sales was 1,651. A compilation of the quarter put production at 188,100 ounces. At June 30, cash was 501.4 million dollars, the undrawn revolving credit was 845.7 million, and the company described available liquidity of 1,348.1 million. Net cash, excluding leases and letters of credit, was 52.2 million. Liquidity is ample. Net cash is thin. Those are different sentences, and the correction cares about both. Ample liquidity means a draw is available. Thin net cash means the draw is closer than a slogan like “debt free” would suggest.
Côté is the mine that decides which sentence wins. Year-to-date cash costs at Côté, including royalties, were 1,622 dollars an ounce, against full-year guidance of 1,200 to 1,350. That is not a small miss against a band. It is a print outside the band. Consolidated all-in sustaining cost excluding royalties was 1,815 dollars year to date, against guidance of 1,675 to 1,825, so the company-wide figure excluding royalties is inside the range and near the top of it. The royalty is doing a lot of the damage in the 2,271 dollar headline, and a lower gold price trims royalty dollars per ounce. A reader who only quotes 2,271 will call IAMGOLD weaker than it is. A reader who ignores the Côté miss will call it stronger than it is. The test in a gold price correction is whether Côté’s cost comes back inside the band while the gold price is in the low 4,000s, or whether the band moves up to meet the cost.
At a 4,100-dollar sale and a 2,271-dollar all-in cost, the gap is still about 1,800 dollars before the arguments about what the all-in figure includes. That is a real business. It is the first gap on this list to get tight if gold falls toward the high 3,000s and Côté does not improve. Lundin’s gap, on June costs, would still be wide in that same fall. The separation the headline promises is that difference. It is not a judgment that one team is serious and the other is not. It is arithmetic plus a mine that is new enough to still be missing its cost promise.
What Wednesday’s tape did not prove
On October 14 the TSX fell a little more than 1 percent and the large gold names fell about 4 to 5 percent. That is the leverage people mean when they say miners are a geared bet on the metal. Gear works on the way down and on the way up. It does not identify the rung. Agnico can fall 4.6 percent on a hot inflation day and still be the company with a 1,459 dollar sustaining cost and an A- rating. A royalty company can fall 4.8 percent and not be a miner at all. Wheaton’s drop that day is a reminder that “gold stocks” includes businesses that do not dig. Their cost is a contract, not a pit. This list stays with producers because the correction’s sort, for producers, runs through the cost and the spend.
Friday’s bounce is the same lesson in reverse. Metal up a bit, miners up before the bell, and nothing about Young-Davidson’s rehab or Côté’s royalty or Hope Bay’s extra 400 million dollars has changed. Gold stock performance over two sessions is a mood. The gold mining stocks outlook over two quarters is a set of numbers you can put in a column: realized price, sustaining cost, growth capital, net cash, and the ounces a guidance cut already removed. If the column still works at 4,000 dollars, the stock is on the strong side of this correction even if the share chart looks ugly. If the column only works at 4,800, the stock is on the weak side even if it rallies on Friday.
There is a temptation to call the whole group strong because the median cost is under 2,000 dollars and the price is over 4,000. The temptation is half right. This correction has not reached the point where the median miner loses money on a sustaining basis. It has reached the point where the margin everyone reported in June, struck at a realized price near 4,400 to 4,500, is too high for October. The next reports will show a lower sale price. Companies that also print a higher cost will look like they “missed.” Some will have missed. Some will have told you in July, as Alamos did, and as Agnico did at Malartic. The miss that was pre-announced is not a surprise. The miss that appears for the first time in the winter release is the separation.
How to watch without turning it into a purchase
Five checks, and then stop. They are the same checks for each name, which is the point. A special story for a favourite is how a watchlist becomes a wish.
First, the realized price in the next release, set next to the June realized price. Lundin’s June quarter was 4,359. Agnico’s was 4,483. If the next print is near 4,100, the margin drop is mostly the gold price correction, not a sudden failure of the mine. If the next print is near 4,100 and the cost is also up, both levers moved, and the share’s leverage will feel worse than the metal’s move.
Second, sustaining cost against the company’s own band, not against a rival’s highlight. Kinross at 1,821 against a 1,730 guide is a different fact from Kinross at 1,821 against Lundin at 1,176. The rival comparison is a ladder. The guide comparison is a promise. Both belong on the page. Only the promise tells you whether this management’s October is going where it said.
Third, what sits outside sustaining cost. Agnico’s extra capital at Hope Bay is outside the 1,400 to 1,550 guide. A low sustaining cost with a rising build is a strong mine attached to a hungry project. Ask what gold price the project needs, and whether that price is January’s or October’s. If the company will not say, the omission is the information.
Fourth, the weak mine inside the strong company. Young-Davidson inside Alamos. Barnat inside Agnico. Côté inside IAMGOLD. Fruta del Norte does not have a second mine to hide in, which is both its purity and its risk. A consolidated number that improved because the weak mine produced less is not a turn. It is a mix shift. Look at ounces by mine, not only at the company average.
Fifth, cash against the next twelve months of spend and payouts. Lundin’s 507 million dollars of cash is real, and so is the habit of a large annual tax payment and a large dividend. IAMGOLD’s 1.3 billion dollars of liquidity is real, and so is 52 million dollars of net cash on the definition the company used. Kinross returning 40 percent of free cash flow is a policy that shrinks automatically if free cash flow shrinks, which is a softer landing than a fixed dividend a weaker miner cannot cut without a fuss. None of these is a buy signal. Each is a way to see who has to raise money if the correction deepens, and who merely has to be less generous.
What you can write down
You can write the metal without a rally story. January’s closing high was near 5,405 dollars, and some reports put the peak above 5,500. October has traded from about 4,075 on the inflation day to the 4,100s and a Friday futures print near 4,200. The gold price correction is that gap. A two-day bounce does not close it.
You can write the tape without making it the sort. On October 14 the TSX fell 1.1 percent and Agnico, Barrick, and Wheaton fell about 4 to 5 percent. Shares are geared to the metal. Gear is not a cost curve.
You can write the five costs from their own quarters. Lundin Gold, second quarter: sustaining cost 1,176 dollars, cash cost 1,016, realized price 4,359, cash 507 million dollars at June 30, and a third-quarter production record of 153,736 ounces with no new cost in that note. Agnico Eagle, second quarter: sustaining cost 1,459, cash cost 1,054, realized price 4,483, production 855,816 payable ounces, cost guide unchanged, capital guide up by about 400 million dollars, Malartic cut by 60,000 to 80,000 ounces in the second half. Alamos, second quarter: 130,600 ounces, Island Gold a record 67,500, company sustaining-cost guide raised to 1,775 to 1,875, production guide cut to 510,000 to 560,000 after a seismic event at Young-Davidson. Kinross, second quarter: attributable sustaining cost 1,821 per gold-equivalent ounce, against a full-year center near 1,730, attributable free cash flow 726.8 million dollars, margin 3,131 on the company’s definition. IAMGOLD, second quarter: sustaining cost 2,271 including royalties and 1,918 without them, liquidity 1,348 million dollars, net cash 52 million on the company’s narrower definition, and Côté year-to-date cash costs including royalties at 1,622 against a guide of 1,200 to 1,350.
You can write the ladder without a medal. At a sale near 4,100, June’s sustaining costs still leave a gap at every rung. The gap is widest at Lundin and narrowest at IAMGOLD. The gap shrinks fastest where the next cost print is already guided higher, which is Alamos, and where one pit’s ounces were cut, which is Agnico at Malartic, and where a new mine is outside its cost band, which is Côté. That is the gold mining stocks outlook this correction supports. It does not support a list of winners.
What would make this reading wrong
The reading is wrong if the next realized prices are still near the June band. A company that hedges, or that delivers into a higher contract, can report a sale price the spot chart does not show. If October’s spot weakness never reaches the income statement, the margin drop this page expects is late or absent. Say so when the filings arrive. Do not keep a squeeze that the contracts avoided.
The reading is wrong if sustaining costs fall as fast as the gold price. Energy, the Canadian dollar, and royalties can all move the all-in figure down in a correction. Alamos already said a weaker Canadian dollar offset some of Island Gold’s inflation. A broad cost decline would tighten the rungs toward each other and make “strong versus weak” a smaller distinction than this page claims. The distinction that would remain is the one inside each company: the hurt mine, the build, the country.
The reading is wrong if Côté’s costs were already back inside the band by the summer and this page is using a stale year-to-date line. The line used here is the company’s second-quarter report: year-to-date cash costs including royalties of 1,622 dollars against guidance of 1,200 to 1,350. A third-quarter release can retire that gap. Until it does, the gap is the watch item. The same rule applies to Agnico’s “unchanged” cost guide and Kinross’s “on track.” Promises are checks, not facts, until the ounces are sold.
The reading is wrong if you use it as a buy list because the title says “stocks to watch.” Watching is the comparison of cost, cash, and the ounces a guidance cut removed. Buying is a decision about price, position size, and what you will do if gold is at 3,700 and the build is still funded. This page does not make that decision. A strong miner at a share price that still assumes January can be a bad purchase. A weaker miner at a share price that assumes a disaster can be a less bad one. The correction sorts the businesses. The market separately sorts the tickets. Do not pretend those sorts are the same day.
The idea, once
Gold’s October correction, a drop of about a quarter from the January high into the low 4,000s, does not by itself tell strong gold mining companies from weak ones. The Wednesday drop in TSX gold mining stocks told you only that the shares are geared to the metal. The sort is the gap between what it costs to keep producing an ounce and what the next quarter will realize for it, plus the cash a build still requires. On June figures, Lundin Gold has the widest gap and IAMGOLD the narrowest. Agnico’s gap is wide and its capital budget got larger while one pit got smaller. Alamos raised its cost guide because one mine had a seismic event and another district is carrying the year. Kinross is still very profitable and is already printing a sustaining cost above the center of its own guide.
That is the watch. It is not a ranking to buy. If the next reports show a lower sale price and a higher cost at the same mines that already slipped, the correction will have finished the separation the tape only started. If the costs hold and the price stops here, the separation will look smaller than the share-price moves of a single Wednesday, and the gear will have been the whole story. Either way, read the cost. Do not read the adjective.