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Is Pain in Store for Gold Mining ETFs on Muted Earnings?

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The gold mining space remained in the red after mixed-to-downbeat earnings reports for the fourth quarter. Below we highlight Q4 earnings results of Barrick Gold CorpGoldcorp Inc.  and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM - Free Report) . Among the trio, Barrick was the first to report earnings after regular trading on Feb 14, 2018.

Let’s dig a little deeper (read: Gold Mining ETF Investing Guide).

Newmont Q4 Earnings in Focus

Gold mining giant Newmont Mining Corporation logged net loss from continuing operations of $534 million or 99 cents per share in fourth-quarter 2017, wider than net loss of $391 million or 73 cents recorded a year ago.

Without one-time items, adjusted earnings were 40 cents per share for the quarter, which came in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Newmont reported revenues of $1.935 billion, up around 8.2% year over year. The figure missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.958 billion. Since Feb 15, 2018, the stock has slipped 3.5% (as of Feb 22, 2018).

Goldcorp Q4 Earnings in Focus

Goldcorp reported net earnings of $242 million or 28 cents per share for fourth-quarter 2017 compared with $101 million or 12 cents recorded a year ago.

Excepting one-time items, adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 10 cents per share, which missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 11 cents.

Goldcorp recorded revenues of $853 million in the fourth quarter, down roughly 5% year over year. The figure also missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $870 million.

Gold sales went down around 17.6% year over year to 633,000 ounces in the fourth quarter and production fell 15.1% to 646,000 ounces. The stock is down 3.4% since Feb 15, 2018.

Barrick Gold Q4 Earnings in Focus

Barrick Gold Corporation recorded net loss (attributable to equity holders) of $314 million or 27 per share for fourth-quarter 2017 against net earnings of $425 million or 36 cents a year ago.

Barring one-time items, adjusted net earnings came in at $253 million or 22 cents per share for the quarter. Earnings per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 20 cents.

Revenues fell roughly 3.9% year over year to $2.228 billion in the fourth quarter but beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.181 billion. The stock has lost about 8.6% since Feb 14, 2018.

ETF Impact 
 
The aforementioned companies have considerable exposure in large-cap funds like VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX - Free Report) iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF (RING - Free Report) , PowerShares Global Gold & Precious Metals ETF  and Sprott Gold Miners ETF (SGDM - Free Report) (see all Materials ETFs here).
 
In PSAU, NEM (8.39%), ABX (7.46%) and GG (6.54%) take the top three positions. RING invests more than 15% each in NEM and more than 11% in ABX, while GG takes 8.02%.

In GDX also, NEM, ABX and GG take 9.40%, 7.30% and 5.41% share, respectively. SGDM puts about 10.92% in NEM, 10.8% in GG and 4.34% in ABX. PSAU, RING, GDX and SGDM has lost about 5.9%, 6.5%, 5.6% and 7.5% since Feb 14, 2018.

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