Barrick Gold (ABX.TO), the world's largest gold miner, reported a 22 percent increase in quarterly profit on Wednesday, driven largely by a surge in bullion prices. Barrick, which surprised investors this week with a C$7.3 billion ($7.7 billion) bid for copper miner Equinox Minerals (EQN.TO), also said it remains on track to meet its full-year gold output forecast of between 7.6 million and 8 million ounces. The Toronto-based miner said its profit benefited from lower than expected cash costs, primarily due to strong performances from its Cortez and Goldstrike mines in Nevada, as well as its Veladero mine in Argentina. "It's a fairly good quarter, costs were very well managed," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst George Topping. "I think overall it's a good quarter and comes on the back of several good quarters. This ought to go some way toward stabilizing the ill will that the acquisition of Equinox has brought."
Shares of ABX fell by 0.66% or $-0.33/share to $49.86. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $39.67 and as high as $55.74. On average, 8794760 shares of ABX exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 7995057.
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