Newmont Q3 2026 Earnings: Record $2.3B Adjusted Profit, $1.9B Back to Shareholders

On October 22, 2026, Newmont reported record third-quarter adjusted net income of $2.3 billion — and then nearly matched it with cash out the door, returning $1.9 billion to shareholders since its last earnings call through dividends and buybacks. GAAP net income was even higher at $2,475 million, up 35% year over year, on revenue of $6,363 million that grew 15% while gold production actually shrank. This is what a gold miner looks like when $4,317-an-ounce gold does all the work: fewer ounces, more dollars, and a shrinking share count compounding every per-share line.

The Headline Numbers​

Newmont's fiscal year is the calendar year, so the third quarter of 2026 is the three months ended September 30, 2026. Every figure below comes from the Form 10-Q and the earnings release filed the same day.

Two things stand out before any segment detail. First, revenue grew nearly six points faster than costs applicable to sales — operating leverage working exactly as a fixed-cost mine portfolio should when the commodity runs. Second, GAAP earnings grew faster than adjusted earnings (35% vs 23%), which is backwards from the usual pattern where adjustments flatter the headline. The reason sits in the tax line: the 10-Q's rate reconciliation shows a roughly $470 million one-off benefit from a check-the-box election, which adjusted net income strips out. GAAP is the number the ledger records; adjusted is the number management wants judged on. Both are records for a third quarter.

The per-share lines deserve their own sentence because they are the whole strategy. Diluted EPS grew 41% — six points faster than net income — because the share count keeps falling. Since February 2024, Newmont has retired over 115 million shares, about 10% of shares outstanding, and weighted-average diluted shares fell from 1,100 million in Q3 2025 to 1,051 million this quarter. Every buyback dollar permanently raises the next dividend per share without raising the $1.1 billion annual dividend commitment. That is the machine; the rest of this post checks whether the machine can keep running.

Revenue Deep Dive​

Newmont reports revenue by mine — twelve managed operations plus the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture — rather than by customer or region. Gold is the overwhelming majority of sales at every site except Peñasquito, where silver, zinc and lead out-earn gold two to one.

The headline is price, not volume. Attributable gold production was 1.30 million ounces — flat with the second quarter and down 8.5% from the 1.42 million of Q3 2025 — yet revenue rose 15% because the average realized price jumped $778 an ounce to $4,317. (That $4,317 is a $4,291 gross sales price plus a $26 favorable mark-to-market on provisionally priced sales.) When output falls and revenue rises by double digits, the income statement is a gold-price derivative with mining attached. Nothing in the release disputes this; management's own commentary centers on execution and costs, never on demand — a gold miner is a price taker, and the seven demand-and-pricing themes we scan for simply do not appear. Absence is the finding: nobody at Newmont claims pricing momentum, because there is no such thing in this business.

The mine-level moves tell four sub-stories. Peñasquito is the co-product star: silver revenue nearly doubled to $550 million on 11 million ounces (up 57% sequentially), with zinc adding $258 million — the mine's gold revenue actually halved to $194 million as the mine plan sequenced into other metals. Boddington surged 52% on higher gold grades and throughput. Cadia collapsed 40% as it recovered from the second-quarter seismic event — though the release notes production is already rebounding, with copper output up 35% company-wide on Cadia's return. And Ahafo North, nil a year ago, contributed $305 million as the new Ghana operation ramps toward higher-grade ore. CEO Natascha Viljoen's verdict: "Newmont remains on track to achieve our full-year 2026 production guidance and improved full-year cost outlook, supported by disciplined operational execution in the third quarter, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our world-class portfolio."

The Margin Story​

Costs applicable to sales ran at 33.7% of revenue, down from 35.3% a year ago — the fixed-cost base spread over price-inflated sales. Gold by-product costs applicable to sales fell to $832 an ounce and all-in sustaining costs to $1,454 an ounce, down 10% sequentially on lower Cadia remediation spend, partly offset by higher sustaining capital. Management improved full-year unit-cost guidance to $925 CAS and $1,520 AISC per ounce, citing "continued cost discipline and higher realized co-product pricing compared to guided assumptions."

The margin expansion is mechanical: revenue per ounce rises with gold while most mining cost is contracted or sunk, so each hundred dollars of gold price drops disproportionately to the bottom line — minus the $6-an-ounce royalty, production-tax and workers-participation drag the release discloses for every $100 move in gold. The tax line helped unusually this quarter: a 26.1% effective rate against 31.4% a year ago, flattered by that $470 million check-the-box benefit. Strip it out and the quarter's pretax economics are merely excellent rather than historic — which is precisely why the GAAP-to-adjusted bridge in the next section matters.

One caution is already scheduled. Management guides Q4 unit costs sharply higher — $1,250 CAS and $1,900 AISC per ounce — on peak sustaining-capital spend and lower co-product volumes, with Peñasquito silver explicitly expected to fall to about half of Q3 volume. And the 2027 preview is a cost headwind list: inflation above the 3% assumption, higher diesel, an unfavorable Australian dollar, and structurally lower Peñasquito co-product credits. Costs are disciplined; they are also rising.

The One Big Question: Can the $1.9B Return Machine Survive the Red Chris Decision?​

Newmont returned $1.9 billion to shareholders in roughly three months — $1.6 billion of buybacks since July 23 (including $451 million in October alone) plus the $0.26 quarterly dividend — with $2.8 billion left under the $6 billion authorization and management openly intending "to request additional approval from its Board of Directors as the current authorization approaches completion." The framework is explicit and repeatable: a sustainable $1.1 billion annual dividend whose per-share value grows only because buybacks "permanently lower the outstanding share count." Before asking whether that survives, here is the release's own GAAP-to-adjusted bridge, which shows what the $2.3 billion headline excludes:

The bridge reconciles to the million, and its shape is the bull case in miniature: the two large subtractions are a tax benefit and a disposal gain — good problems — while the add-back is $116 million of legacy-site reclamation, cash that left for mines that no longer produce. But the question is forward, not backward, because the Red Chris block-cave decision lands in early 2027: $4.2–$4.8 billion of development capital (100% basis, net of a CAD$500 million Canadian government grant still being finalized), construction starting 2027, commercial production targeted for 2033, ramping to 275–325 thousand ounces of gold and 65–85 thousand tonnes of copper a year in 2035–2040, with a potential 70-year mine life. Newmont owns 70% and "expects to fund the capital investment through internal cash flows."

Stack that against 2027 as guided: development capital up about $500 million (Red Chris plus the Lihir Nearshore Barrier), unit costs trending higher, Peñasquito co-product credits fading, and working capital potentially pressured by higher cash taxes "if gold prices stabilize." The $8.8 billion cash balance and $3.2 billion net-cash position clearly cover the near term — but the return machine consumes $1.9 billion a quarter while the investment machine is about to step up by billions a year. Both plans assume gold stays near $4,500, the guidance assumption, against $4,317 realized this quarter. The Red Chris feasibility study is evaluated down to $3,600 gold — the release says it still clears double-digit IRR there — yet at $3,600 the buyback-plus-dividend run rate would be eating the balance sheet, not compounding it. That is the tension to watch through the February 2027 investment decision: whether record distributions and a record project can share one commodity price.

Tracking a $58 Billion Balance Sheet in Plain Text​

A commodity company's earnings release asks you to hold price, cost, production, special items, debt, and cash in your head at once — and trust that they reconcile. Double-entry bookkeeping refuses that trust: every dollar must come from somewhere and go somewhere, so the model either ties or it doesn't. That discipline is the point of how we model every company. Here is Newmont's third quarter as one zero-sum transaction, exactly as validated and pushed (income negative as a credit, expenses positive as a debit, the offset proving the sum is zero):

; FY2026Q3 Income Statement — three months ended September 30, 2026
; Check: −6,363 + 2,143 + 632 + 126 + 82 + 256 + 31 + (−221) + 839 + 2,475 = 0 ✓
 
2026-09-30 * "Newmont Corporation" "FY2026Q3 Income Statement"
  Income:Revenue                               -6363 MUSD  ; sales
  Expenses:CostOfRevenue                        2143 MUSD  ; costs applicable to sales
  Expenses:DepreciationAndAmortization           632 MUSD  ; depreciation and amortization
  Expenses:ResearchAndDevelopment                 68 MUSD  ; exploration
  Expenses:ResearchAndDevelopment                 58 MUSD  ; advanced projects, research and development
  Expenses:SellingGeneralAdministrative           82 MUSD  ; general and administrative
  Expenses:OtherNet                              199 MUSD  ; reclamation and remediation
  Expenses:OtherNet                               18 MUSD  ; other expense, net
  Expenses:OtherNet                               39 MUSD  ; net income attributable to noncontrolling interests, deducted as the filing does
  Expenses:Interest                               31 MUSD  ; interest expense, net of capitalized interest
  Income:OtherNet                                -78 MUSD  ; other income, net
  Income:OtherNet                               -143 MUSD  ; equity income of affiliates
  Expenses:IncomeTax                             839 MUSD  ; income and mining tax expense
  Equity:Adjustments                            2475 MUSD  ; net income attributable to Newmont stockholders offset (RE set by balance assertion)

That block is not an illustration; it is the period that was validated and pushed to open_ledger/newmont, where assets of $58,183M equal liabilities of $22,333M plus equity of $35,850M to the million the 10-Q prints. The one balance-sheet number that tells the narrative is cash of $8,827 million — against total debt of just $5,087 million, a $3.2 billion net-cash position that funds both the buyback and the coming capex wave without new borrowing. A second number deserves a glance: retained earnings of $6,575 million, rebuilt from a $1,320 million accumulated deficit two years ago — the divestiture era's losses fully earned back, then doubled.

The Multi-Year Arc​

Three periods — two audited annuals plus this quarter's nine months — show a company transformed by two forces at once: a portfolio cleanup and a gold super-cycle.

Read it as a deleveraging-to-distribution arc. FY2024 was still the divestiture year: $4.6 billion of held-for-sale assets, a $1.1 billion disposal loss, $8.5 billion of debt. FY2025 closed the program — a $1.1 billion disposal gain, $3.4 billion of debt repaid, cash doubled. Nine months into 2026, net income already exceeds all of FY2025, debt is flat at $5.1 billion, and the cash flow statement shows where the gold money goes: $5.2 billion of buybacks in nine months, more than FY2024 and FY2025 combined. The share count tells the compounding story in one line: 1,148 → 1,108 → 1,069 million. Newmont produced fewer gold ounces in 2026 than in 2025 and will earn far more per share. That works for exactly as long as the gold price cooperates.

The Verdict: Bull vs. Bear​

Bull Case

• Per-share compounding is structural, not cyclical. Retiring 10% of shares since February 2024 permanently raises every future per-share metric; the $1.1B dividend commitment now buys $1.04 indicated per share, up from $1.00, with no extra cash.
• The balance sheet funds the growth pipeline internally. $8.8B cash and $3.2B net cash cover the 2027 capex step-up and the early Red Chris spend with no new debt, and Q4 is guided as the strongest production quarter of the year (1,365 Koz).
• Costs are beating guidance, not just meeting it. Full-year by-product CAS/AISC guidance improved to $925/$1,520, and Q3 AISC fell 10% sequentially — genuine operating leverage, not just price.
• Red Chris is a 70-year call option being de-risked now. Amended BC permits, Tahltan Nation consent, a CAD$500M federal grant, and double-digit IRR even at $3,600 gold make the early-2027 FID look pre-wired.
• Legacy liabilities are amortizing away. Yanacocha water plants ($1.3B of $1.8B spent) complete in 2027, and total reclamation spend falls ~$200M a year through 2028, converting closure cash into distributable cash.

Bear Case

• Every bull point is a gold-price derivative. At $3,600 gold — the Red Chris downside case — revenue falls ~17% while mining costs barely move; the 39% net margin compresses toward the mid-20s and the $1.9B quarterly distribution pace becomes balance-sheet consumption.
• Production is shrinking underneath the records. Q3 gold output fell 8.5% YoY; full-year guidance of 5.26 Moz trails FY2025's 5.89 Moz. The company is worth more while mining less — fine at $4,317, dangerous in reverse.
• Q4 and 2027 are pre-guided cost headwinds. Q4 AISC guidance of $1,900 is 31% above Q3's $1,454; 2027 brings diesel, FX, inflation, and fading Peñasquito co-product credits. None of the seven management demand/pricing themes appear because none can — costs are the only controllable lever, and they are rising.
• Red Chris spends for six years before producing. $4.2–$4.8B from 2027 to a 2033 commercial-production target means the market's longest-duration gold bet, with the federal grant still unfinalized and JV-board approval still pending.
• El Niño is a live Q4 wildcard. Lihir's water-supply drought "may impact both production and costs" in the quarter management needs for its strongest print — a weather call on the year's most important three months.

Our Take

Newmont has built the best capital-return machine in gold mining and is running it at full speed into its largest-ever investment decision — both funded by a $4,317 gold price that the company does nothing to create. The ledger earns its optimism: net cash, falling share count, costs beating guidance, and a project pipeline with genuine multi-decade optionality. But strip $700 off the gold price and the machine runs in reverse: margins compress, the buyback authorization becomes a lifeline instead of a compounder, and Red Chris turns from funding-advantaged to funding-competitive. Own the execution, hedge the metal. The February 2027 investment decision — and the gold price on that day — is the moment this story gets priced.