Newmont Corporation reports Q1 2026 results on May 12 at a moment when the gold price, not short sellers, is writing the story.
The stock has climbed 7.3% over the past week and 2.7% on Friday alone, closing at $116.51. Peers moved more cautiously: AEM fell 1.1% on the day, RGLD dropped 1.8%, and CDE shed 3.4%. NEM's outperformance against the peer group is notable. Options traders are not markedly defensive heading in — the put/call ratio of 0.74 is essentially in line with its 20-day average of 0.73, with a z-score of just 0.46. Neither side of the options market is reaching for protection.
Short interest tells an equally calm story. Bears hold just 1.7% of the free float short — modest for a large-cap miner — and the position has barely moved, up about 1.6% on the week after falling 5.7% over the past month. Borrow costs remain negligible at 0.41% annually, and availability is loose, with the lending pool well under its 52-week peak. There is no meaningful squeeze pressure and no evidence of a conviction short thesis building ahead of the print.
Executives are selling, and that is the one signal worth flagging. Over the past 90 days, insiders net sold roughly $9.4 million worth of stock across multiple transactions. Chief Legal Officer Peter Wexler sold more than $2.6 million in the final two days of April alone, while Managing Director Dave Thornton and EVP Peter Toth each trimmed positions in May. None of the trades carry high significance scores, and the prices — around $107–$110 — sit below the current level, suggesting these may be planned disposals rather than tactical exits. Still, no insider has been a buyer in the window visible here.
The analyst community is broadly constructive despite the headline consensus registering "sell" — a quirk of limited coverage counts. BMO Capital raised its target to $145 after last quarter's print in late April, and CIBC holds at $176. The bull case centres on Newmont's ~5.3 million ounce production profile for 2026 meeting a gold price environment that some forecasters see exceeding $4,000/oz in the second half of the year. The bear case points to persistent integration drag from the Newcrest acquisition and a downside scenario — modelled on $2,500/oz long-term gold — that implies a dramatically lower share price. At a trailing P/E of roughly 10.6x on the snapshot data (the fundamentals API returns a higher LTM figure reflecting the most recent quarter's earnings spike), valuation is less of a debate driver than execution and the gold price assumption each analyst plugs in. EPS momentum ranks in the 85th percentile over 30 days, and the EPS surprise score sits at the 83rd percentile — the company has been delivering.
Tuesday's print is ultimately a test of whether Newmont can translate a strong gold-price backdrop into free cash flow growth that narrows the gap with its historically better-performing peers — and whether the pace of portfolio rationalisation post-Newcrest is convincing enough to hold the recent rally.
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