It’s been a jittery few weeks for markets. A global bond rout has rattled investors, and stocks have swung from another AI-driven record to a sharp tech selloff. And gold, which is down just over a fifth since its late January record, has offered investors little refuge.

The biggest headwind for gold right now is that it’s a non-yielding asset at a time when 30-year Treasuries yield over 5%. Yet those yields are high because of forces that normally favour gold, namely chronic inflation driven by geopolitical uncertainty and a higher term premium (the extra yield for tying up money for longer), which investors demand in the face of poor fiscal discipline.

But what if gold did have a yield? The companies that mine it are one place to look. Many already pay dividends, giving investors a version of that income. 

We looked at a sample of six large-cap gold miners. Analysts in a Bloomberg consensus survey expect them to pay out, on average, about 2.7% of their share prices in dividends over the next 12 months, with individual dividend yields ranging from 0.7% to 6.3%.

Figure 1: Consensus 12-month forward dividend yield

Source: Bloomberg, consensus 12-month forward dividend yield for Kinross Gold, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Barrick Mining, Newmont and Agnico Eagle Mines, as at 16 October 2026.

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That dispersion largely reflects differing dividend policies. Some companies pay a fixed quarterly dividend, resulting in a lower, steadier yield, while others combine a fixed base dividend with a variable component tied to a percentage of free cash flow (FCF), producing a yield that moves with the price of gold.

Could gold miners pay a higher dividend?

If the sample set of gold miners were to uniformly adopt a variable dividend policy, as is already common in energy and diversified mining companies, the sector could potentially see a meaningful increase in dividend yield. With few growth projects to spend on and little debt to repay, miners would likely keep accumulating cash if the price of gold stays elevated, and we expect management teams to revisit conservative dividend and capitalisation policies.

As an illustrative example, a variable dividend policy based on a 50% FCF payout ratio at US$5,000 per ounce of gold could push the sample’s average dividend yield towards 5%, close to parity with Treasury yields. At a 90% payout ratio and the same US$5,000 gold price, that yield could approach 9%.

The flip side is that a variable dividend tends to fall when the price of gold drops, so it is less certain than a Treasury coupon, and gold miner shares have tended to swing by more than gold itself.

That said, gold miners have rarely been in better financial shape. We estimate the industry as a whole breaks even at a gold price of around US$1,700 to US$1,800 an ounce[1], once every cost of keeping its mines running (also known as all-in sustaining cost, or AISC) is counted.

Gold currently trades in the low US$4,000s per ounce. The average mid-to-large cap miner carries very little debt, and most are sitting on a net cash position, to the point that one could argue they are materially undercapitalised.

FCF generation is strong across the large caps in the sample. At US$4,000 per ounce of gold, we estimate the average FCF yield across this group is roughly 6%. [2] While capital expenditure (capex) is expected to rise in the coming years, we expect most major miners to remain disciplined on spending, with the scarcity of large-scale discoveries acting as a natural governor on growth capex.

Figure 2: Major gold discoveries have fallen despite higher exploration budgets

Source: S&P Global, as at 16 October.

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For some of the miners in our sample, dividend yields have fallen since gold began picking up in 2022. This is because dividends have barely changed while share prices have risen. Shareholder return policies are further differentiated by the presence, or absence, of buyback programmes alongside dividends.

Geopolitical tailwind for gold

Setting aside the yield disadvantage, we believe gold’s fundamentals remain strong, and the forces behind this cycle are structural rather than short-term. Supply continues to be constrained, and organic growth from mining is still challenged.

Global money supply continues to expand with little sign of reversing. This tends to erode what each unit of currency can buy, and geopolitical uncertainty keeps arriving in unending waves with trade wars and now armed conflicts.

Central banks, China chief among them, continue buying gold at record volumes with no sign of slowing and 89% of respondents in the World Gold Council’s annual central bank gold reserves survey expect global central bank gold reserves to rise over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, the broader geopolitical narrative around de-dollarisation and reserve diversification has rarely been stronger.

Diversifying with gold has historically meant giving up income, and with Treasuries paying over 5% the cost is higher now. If more miners share their cash flow, that trade-off could narrow.

All data Bloomberg, unless otherwise stated.

Author:Albert Chu, Portfolio Manager, Natural Resources, Man Group.


[1] Based on company guidance.

[2] We estimated each miner’s free cash flow per share at US$4,000/oz gold, divided it by its current share price to give a free cash flow yield, and averaged the results across the six senior gold miners.