Barrick Gold (ABX) Stock Rising As Gold Prices Improve

Barrick Gold (ABX) stock is increasing in midday trading on Monday amid rising gold prices.
By Amanda Albright ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Barrick Gold (ABX) stock is up by 1.42% to $7.15 in early afternoon trading on Monday, as a slight rebound in the price of gold provides a boost to stocks in the sector.

Gold for December delivery is increasing by 0.14% to $1,089.20 per ounce on the COMEX this afternoon.

Gold prices reached their lowest level in three months, after a strong U.S. jobs report on Friday increased the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, the Wall Street Journal reported. The precious metal struggles to compete with interest-bearing assets. 

Investors are selling from bullion-backed funds at the fastest pace in three months, Bloomberg reports. 

"Money has been flowing out of gold," Xu Wenyu,, an analyst at Huatai Great Wall Futures, told Bloomberg. "We may see occasional spurts of buying, but gold remains on a downtrend."

Barrick Gold is a gold mining company based in Toronto. 

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates BARRICK GOLD CORP as a Sell with a ratings score of D. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

We rate BARRICK GOLD CORP (ABX) a SELL. This is driven by a few notable weaknesses, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, generally high debt management risk, disappointing return on equity and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself.

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

  • The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Metals & Mining industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 311.2% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $125.00 million to -$264.00 million.
  • The debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26 is relatively high when compared with the industry average, suggesting a need for better debt level management.
  • Current return on equity is lower than its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a clear sign of weakness within the company. Compared to other companies in the Metals & Mining industry and the overall market, BARRICK GOLD CORP's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
  • Despite any intermediate fluctuations, we have only bad news to report on this stock's performance over the last year: it has tumbled by 32.91%, worse than the S&P 500's performance. Consistent with the plunge in the stock price, the company's earnings per share are down 309.09% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
  • Despite the weak revenue results, ABX has significantly outperformed against the industry average of 45.8%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 11.8%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
  • You can view the full analysis from the report here: ABX

Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of Jim Cramer, TheStreet or any of its contributors.

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