HARMONY GOLD MINING CO LTD (HMY) Stock Analysis
HARMONY GOLD MINING CO LTD
▾ What's in the 27/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read HMY (cyclical commodity producer)
A miner or energy producer earns whatever the commodity price is, so a single DCF swings with the cycle. Judge it against peers and where you think the commodity cycle is heading.
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EV/Sales peer comparison ↓
How the price compares to similar producers is more meaningful than a through-cycle DCF.
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Interactive calculator (test cycle assumptions) ↓
Flex the growth/discount inputs to see how sensitive the value is to where we are in the cycle.
Standard DCF doesn't fit HMY well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The EV/Sales Peer Comparison below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value gold & silver mining. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Miners, metals and energy producers earn whatever the commodity price is at the time. A discounted-cash-flow model leans on recent cash flow, so it swings with the cycle: the result is dominated by where we are in the commodity cycle rather than by durable business economics.
For this business type, lean on the EV/Sales peer comparison and Reverse-DCF below (how today's price compares to similar producers and what growth it implies), and weigh the commodity-price outlook. Treat the DCF number as a rough mid-cycle reference, not a buy/sell trigger.
How does HMY stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to HMY (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If HMY is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
8.8x / 16.5x / 17.1x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVAWW | Nova Minerals Ltd | Gold & Silver Mining | $10.8B | — | — | — | — |
| EQX | Equinox Gold Corp. | Gold & Silver Mining | $10.6B | — | 16.5x | — | — |
| IAG | IAMGOLD CORP | Gold & Silver Mining | $10.6B | — | 8.8x | — | — |
| AG | FIRST MAJESTIC SILVER CORP | Gold & Silver Mining | $10.4B | — | — | — | — |
| AGI | ALAMOS GOLD INC | Gold & Silver Mining | $17.1B | — | — | — | — |
| CDE | Coeur Mining, Inc. | Gold & Silver Mining | $20.0B | 9.7x | — | 28.3x | 0.4% |
| DRD | DRDGOLD LTD | Gold & Silver Mining | $22.8B | — | — | — | — |
| PAAS | PAN AMERICAN SILVER CORP | Gold & Silver Mining | $24.0B | — | 17.1x | — | — |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
The F-score compares two consecutive years of income, cash-flow and balance-sheet data. We have 3 years of income data for this filer, but no machine-readable cash-flow statement — so several of the nine checks have no input at all. We show nothing rather than score a partial year against itself. The reported figures in the financial tables below are unaffected.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Harmony Gold Mining, as indicated by its negative net income in the latest period and the model's inability to compute a positive equity value. Investors are likely betting on future gold price appreciation and successful mine development, which are not captured in backward-looking cash flow models. To value it, one would need to project future gold production volumes, costs, and market prices with high confidence. The #1 quantifiable risk is continued negative net income, which implies ongoing cash burn.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Quarterly gold production volumes and grades
- All-in sustaining costs (AISC) per ounce
- Trends in global gold prices
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2017 → FY2018, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Swung to a loss of -$321.0M (from a profit the prior year).
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Peter Steenkamp has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Harmony Gold Mining since 2016. Harry 'Herman' Wenhold is the Chief Financial Officer, appointed in 2021. The company is led by an experienced team in the mining sector.
What They Make
Harmony Gold Mining is a South African gold mining company primarily engaged in the exploration, extraction, and processing of gold. Its main customers are refiners and bullion dealers in the global gold market.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing Harmony Gold based on expectations for future gold prices and the potential for increased production from its mining assets, rather than its current cash flow, which is negative as per the latest net income. The market may be assigning value to the optionality of new gold discoveries or expansions of existing mines, which is not in the model, anticipating these could significantly improve future profitability.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Harmony Gold primarily funds itself through operational cash flows, debt, and equity raises, as it has negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → and no specific dividend or buyback rates are available.
Growth / Revenue DCF
No cash flow statement data available - using revenue/margin growth model as fallback.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 15.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project production volumes, realized commodity prices and unit cash costs independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Net income was negative in the latest period, though profitable in two out of the last three years.
Geography & Markets
Harmony Gold Mining primarily operates in South Africa and Papua New Guinea. Exact geographic revenue splits are not available from current data sources, but its core operations are concentrated in these regions.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)58.1NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (3 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From HARMONY GOLD MINING CO LTD's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | — | -321.0M | $-0.51 |
| 2017 | — | 17.0M | $0.03 |
| 2016 | — | 66.0M | $0.10 |
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 2.9B |
| Total Liabilities | — |
| Equity | — |
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