The world's 50 most valuable mining companies lost $264 billion in market value in September, the second-largest monthly drop since the ranking began in 2019. A global bond selloff and the Federal Reserve's first rate hike since 2023 dragged gold and the stocks tied to it sharply lower, while copper and lithium miners took separate hits.
The world's 50 most valuable mining companies lost $264 billion in market value in September as oil-driven inflation fears pushed bond yields to their highest since 2008 and pushed the Fed into its first rate hike in three years. The group ended the month worth $2.26 trillion, behind only March's $434 billion drop, and the decline erased roughly three-quarters of August's record $357 billion gain.
Rising oil prices and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish speech at Jackson Hole had already set off the bond selloff. On Sept. 16, the Fed raised its benchmark rate a quarter point to a range of 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since July 2023. Warsh said after the decision: "This summer's inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved"
Gold miners take the brunt
Higher yields and a firmer dollar raise the cost of holding a metal that pays no interest, and gold futures fell 6.4% over the month to $4,158 an ounce, while silver lost 9%. The 15 gold producers in the ranking lost a combined $79 billion, or 12.7%, and none finished the month higher.
Kinross Gold cut its 2026 and 2027 production outlook on Sept. 23, citing severe winter weather at La Coipa in Chile and weaker grades at Round Mountain in Nevada, and finished the month down 21.3%. Shandong Gold fell 27.8%, the worst performance in the ranking, after lowering its 2026 mined-gold target.
Copper and lithium had separate problems
Copper prices ended September almost exactly where they started, but copper producers still lost $44 billion. BHP posted the largest dollar loss in the ranking, $26.4 billion, after a worker was killed during maintenance at Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, forcing a temporary halt. A week later, the mine's supervisors union rejected BHP's final contract offer, with 95% of participating members backing a strike.
First Quantum Minerals fell 19.2% after a Panamanian commission recommended negotiating a restart of the shuttered Cobre Panama mine. Separately, lithium carbonate futures in Guangzhou fell 22.5% in September after price reporter SMM changed how it counts inventories, more than doubling reported Chinese stockpiles.
Even after the selloff, the Top 50 closed the third quarter $107 billion higher than it began. Gold has since steadied: a weak September jobs report cut the market's odds of an October rate hike to the mid-teens from nearly 70% earlier in the week.
Source: Oilprice.com
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