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    Mining stocks hammered as Iran war escalates: risk signals for project teams

    March 4, 2026|

    Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

    Mining stocks hammered as Iran war escalates: risk signals for project teams

    First reported on MINING.com

    30 Second Briefing

    Mining equities sold off sharply as the Iran–US conflict escalated, with gold futures briefly nearing $5,000/oz before closing down 3.5% and silver trading around $83/oz, still 6% lower on the day, while copper slipped 2% to $5.83/lb. Newmont, Barrick and AngloGold Ashanti fell 7.9%, 8.3% and 10.4% respectively, Gold Fields dropped 11.6%, and platinum-focused Valterra Platinum slid 13.6% after intraday platinum price falls of up to 10%. Diversified and copper majors fared slightly better, with BHP down 5.6%, Southern Copper 5.8%, Rio Tinto 4.3% and Glencore only 2.1% helped by trading roughly 4 million boe/day of oil.

    Technical Brief

    • Newmont and Barrick traded heavily, with 14 million and 23 million shares changing hands respectively.
    • Market capitalisations post-selloff: Newmont $129bn, Barrick $78bn, AngloGold Ashanti $58bn, Gold Fields $45bn.
    • Wheaton Precious Metals closed at $68.7bn market cap versus Franco-Nevada at $50bn after smaller losses.
    • Silver-focused names: Fresnillo’s US units dropped to $38.3bn, Pan American Silver to $26bn capitalisation.
    • Valterra Platinum ended at a $25bn valuation after intraday platinum lows just above $2,000/oz.
    • BHP retained a $200bn-plus valuation, the only mining stock ever to reach that threshold.

    Our Take

    Many of the large-cap gold and copper names hit here – Newmont, Barrick, Teck Resources and TSX-listed peers – also feature heavily in our TSX/TSXV coverage of outsized 2025 equity gains, so this drawdown is coming off a base where several miners had already doubled or more year-on-year.

    With copper still around $5.83/lb despite a 2% daily drop, operators like Freeport-McMoRan, Southern Copper and Antofagasta remain in a price environment that, in our database, has been underpinning aggressive growth and M&A plans rather than cutbacks, suggesting this sell-off is more sentiment-driven than fundamentals-led for copper-heavy portfolios.

    The fact that diversified traders such as Glencore, with roughly 4 million boe/d of oil-equivalent trading, moved less than single-commodity producers in this rout reinforces a pattern in our recent coverage: integrated exposure to oil and gas has been cushioning volatility for some mining houses during geopolitical shocks centred on the Middle East.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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