I see more and more mining companies publishing extremely high cash costs/oz these days. It's a crazy business, the mining business, where everything is possible when PM prices are good, but when the boom is followed by a bust, the entire industry collapses leading a big part of the mines to be closed and leaving many jobless.

This is why I prefer to focus on companies with low cash costs/oz. At least they can keep their miners working when the gold price halves in a short period of time.

Same with hedging. Hedging was more popular some years ago, but as soon as PM prices rose no one wanted to do any hedging anymore. This business has boom/bust written all over it. Maybe the PM miners should have a look at the oil & gas industry to learn something. I understand that junior miners are a completely different ball game, but if you cannot guarantee beforehand that cash costs/oz can ever go below $1000/oz there's really no point mining the PMs is there?