Understanding CDE (Coeur Mining) as a “cyclical gold and silver miner”: What to watch for amid the swings

* This report is prepared based on data as of 2026-01-07.

1. The business in plain English: What CDE does and how it makes money

CDE (Coeur Mining) is a resource producer that mines gold and silver, processes the ore, and sells the resulting metals. The economic model is simple: produce gold and silver from company-owned mines → sell into the market → profit is what’s left after mining, processing, transportation, and other operating costs.

Its customers are mostly businesses rather than consumers—metal traders, industrial end users, and intermediaries such as financial institutions and trading houses—so this is fundamentally a B2B market. The key point is that gold and silver are globally priced commodities. Even if volumes are flat, higher prices typically lift revenue and profits, while lower prices can compress profitability quickly.

Where it produces: A multi-mine portfolio

CDE’s core operations are in the U.S. and Mexico, producing gold and silver across a set of mines in places such as the U.S. (Nevada, Alaska, South Dakota) and Mexico (Sonora, Chihuahua). Operating multiple mines matters because the business is less likely to be completely derailed if one site underperforms.

Mining profit drivers: Three variables that matter

At a high level, mining success comes down to three things:

• How much it can produce (production volume)
• What it costs to produce (unit costs)
• How long it can keep producing (mine life = reserves/resources and exploration results)

Even for the same metals, higher-grade and easier-to-mine ore bodies have a structural advantage. Conversely, cases where revenue rises but profits don’t often reflect more than just price—grade, recovery rates, operating stability, and costs can be decisive.

Where the company is headed: Exploration, geographic mix, and “optionality”

For CDE, “building the future” is less about launching new products and more about optimizing existing mines, investing in exploration, and adjusting the asset mix. Based on the available information, the forward-looking pillars are:

• Increasing exploration around Palmarejo (Mexico): Adding new veins near existing infrastructure can be more capital-efficient than developing a greenfield mine.
• Shifting more weight toward U.S.-based assets: This can align with investor preferences by reducing geopolitical and permitting uncertainty.
• Silvertip (Canada) exploration project: Today, it’s more of a long-dated option than a core earnings driver.

Analogy: A mining company is like “farmland”

You can think of a mining company as “farmland.” It harvests what’s already in production (operating mines), scouts the boundaries and nearby acreage (exploration) to expand future harvest areas, and upgrades equipment and methods (improvement capex) to improve yields and economics. CDE is the kind of operator that owns multiple “fields” and aims to expand them through exploration.

2. Long-term fundamentals: What “type” of company is this?

Based on long-term results (5-year and 10-year), CDE most closely fits Peter Lynch’s framework as a “Cyclicals” name. This isn’t a value judgment; it simply reflects a clear pattern of results that swing with external conditions (commodity prices) and operating performance.

Why it fits the Cyclicals bucket (long-term)

• EPS regularly swings between losses and profits: FY2024 EPS is 0.15, while FY2021–FY2023 were loss years (for example, FY2023 was -0.30).
• ROE is unstable even when revenue grows: Revenue CAGR is ~8.2% over 5 years and ~5.2% over 10 years, yet ROE was negative for extended stretches before recovering to 5.24% in FY2024.
• FCF is volatile: On an FY basis, many years are negative; FY2024 FCF is -895.4万ドル (FCF margin -0.85%).

What it means when growth rates “can’t be calculated”

EPS growth (5-year and 10-year) and FCF growth (5-year and 10-year) are not calculable as growth rates because the series includes loss years and negative years. That’s less a “missing data” issue and more a hallmark of cyclicals: when the denominator and even the sign can flip, the usual growth-rate yardstick often stops being meaningful.

Profitability and margins: FY is choppy, while TTM can tell a different story

In FY2024, operating margin is 15.58% and net margin is 5.59%, reflecting a return to profitability on an annual basis. Meanwhile, FY FCF margin is -0.85%, so free cash flow is not yet positive on that same FY view.

The key nuance is that on a TTM basis, FCF margin screens as very high at 21.67%. The FY vs. TTM gap is fundamentally a time-window effect. Rather than treating it as a contradiction, it’s better to start from the premise that annual figures can be more sensitive to capex timing and working-capital swings.

A recurring cyclical pattern: Profitability rarely moves in a straight line

Over the long arc, CDE has seen multi-year loss periods (e.g., 2013–2015, 2019, 2021–2023) followed by profitable stretches. FY2024 returned to profitability with net income of $58.90 million, which fits the “recovery toward normalization” phase of the cycle.

However, on a TTM basis, EPS YoY is -57.49%, showing the near-term recovery isn’t linear. This kind of cyclical “mismatch”—“FY recovery, TTM deceleration”—can happen, and is best interpreted as a difference in how each time window captures the underlying volatility.

Source of growth (one-sentence summary)

Historically, changes in EPS appear to be driven more by “margin expansion/contraction (price, costs, operating conditions)” and “share count increases (dilution)” than by steady, incremental revenue growth.

Dividends and capital allocation: Not a dividend-driven story

Because TTM dividend yield and dividend per share cannot be obtained due to insufficient data, based on the available information it’s difficult to frame CDE as a stock where “dividends are central to the thesis.” The dividend streak is also short at 2 years, and shareholder returns are more likely to be discussed through operating execution and cycle-aware growth investment (and share repurchases discussed later) rather than dividends.

3. Current operating strength: Short-term momentum is “decelerating,” while the cyclical profile remains

On the most recent TTM view, CDE’s momentum is classified as Decelerating. Rather than reading that as outright “deterioration,” it’s more accurate to view it as a cyclical inflection in momentum showing up in the numbers.

What the TTM shows: Revenue is surging, but YoY EPS and FCF weaken

• EPS (TTM): 0.6281, YoY -57.49%
• Revenue (TTM): $1.7007 billion, YoY +68.28% (well above the long-term 5-year CAGR of +8.18%)
• FCF (TTM): $368.5 million, YoY -802.42%

Revenue has jumped, but EPS has slowed sharply, and FCF YoY is deeply negative. In resource stocks, profits and cash flow can diverge due to price, costs, grades, and operating performance—as well as capex timing and working-capital movements—so this “revenue up, profit not keeping pace” pattern is consistent with cyclical behavior.

Two-year trends can look positive, but the latest year shows clear deceleration

Over the last two years (~8 quarters), TTM EPS, revenue, net income, and FCF generally move in an “upward” direction, with the indicated correlations (e.g., EPS correlation +0.97, FCF correlation +0.98). By contrast, on the latest TTM YoY basis, EPS and FCF have weakened materially—creating a setup where the two-year picture looks constructive, but the most recent year highlights deceleration.

4. Financial health: Leverage isn’t “extreme,” but cash isn’t especially abundant either

For cyclicals, the balance sheet often matters more than headline “growth.” The long-term differentiator is whether the company can stay afloat when the cycle turns down—and still invest for the next upcycle.

Latest FY (FY2024) leverage and liquidity

• Debt-to-equity: 0.536
• Net debt / EBITDA: 1.77x
• Cash ratio: 0.167

As of FY2024, net debt/EBITDA is at a level that—relative to the company’s own historical range discussed later—looks “within range and toward the lower end,” so it’s hard to characterize leverage as extremely heavy. That said, the cash ratio is not high, and with momentum decelerating it’s difficult to argue the cash buffer is substantial. How resilient the company is to earnings and cash-flow volatility remains a key monitoring item.

Capex burden (short-term reference)

The latest capex burden is approximately 20.6% of operating cash flow. From that figure alone, it’s hard to conclude that “capex is overly pressuring cash,” but because mining cash flows can swing significantly based on investment timing, it’s worth monitoring alongside the YoY deterioration in FCF momentum.

5. Where valuation sits versus its own history (6 metrics)

Here, without benchmarking to the market or peers, we place today’s valuation against CDE’s own historical distribution (primarily the past 5 years, with the past 10 years as a supplement). This section is not an investment call (attractiveness/recommendation).

PEG: Negative today, but hard to anchor historically

PEG is currently -0.0052, reflecting the negative recent EPS growth rate (TTM YoY -57.49%). Over the past 5 years there isn’t enough data to build a distribution, and over the past 10 years a “normal range” also can’t be constructed. As a result, it’s a metric where it is difficult to judge “within range / breakout / breakdown” using history.

P/E: Toward the low end of the 5- and 10-year range (with cyclical caveats)

P/E (TTM) is 29.61x, sitting toward the lower end of the normal range over the past 5 and 10 years. For cyclicals, because earnings (the denominator) move with the cycle, P/E is not a clean signal on its own—so this caveat matters.

Free cash flow yield: Above the historical distribution

FCF yield (TTM) is 3.09%, positioned above the upper bound of the normal range over the past 5 and 10 years. That suggests “recent TTM cash generation is meaningfully above the historical average zone.”

ROE: Above the upper bound of the 5- and 10-year range (FY basis)

ROE (FY2024) is 5.24%, above the upper bound (4.01%) of the normal range over the past 5 and 10 years. Over the last two years, ROE has moved back into positive territory in the latest FY from a period that included loss years, and can be described as trending upward.

FCF margin: Extremely high on a TTM basis (different from FY)

FCF margin (TTM) is 21.67%, far above the normal range over the past 5 and 10 years. Meanwhile, FY2024 FCF margin is -0.85%, and the TTM vs. FY gap should be understood as a time-window effect (the picture can change depending on which period more heavily reflects capex and working-capital impacts).

Net Debt / EBITDA: Within range and toward the lower end (inverse indicator)

Net Debt / EBITDA is 1.77x. This is an inverse indicator in the sense that the lower it is (or the more negative it becomes), the more relative cash the company has and the greater its financial flexibility. CDE’s current level sits toward the lower end of its 5- and 10-year range (i.e., the side that typically implies a lighter burden).

6. How to think about cash flow “quality”: Start with the reality that EPS and FCF can diverge

On an FY basis, CDE has many years of negative FCF, and FY2024 FCF is -895.4万ドル. By contrast, on a TTM basis, FCF is $368.5 million and FCF margin is 21.67%, which looks strong. This gap is not, by itself, proof of either deterioration or improvement, and may simply reflect timing differences tied to investment phases and working capital.

In mining, FCF can swing meaningfully due to capex (sustaining and expansion), changes in inventories and receivables, and the timing of construction payments. For investors, rather than anchoring on a single-year “FCF was/wasn’t generated,” it’s often more useful to track whether investment completion → harvesting (payback) becomes a repeatable pattern over multiple years—and how that cash is ultimately allocated across debt, reinvestment, dilution, and returns.

7. Why CDE has won (the core success pattern)

CDE’s value creation is driven less by customer acquisition or product innovation and more by mining assets and operating execution. In one sentence, the success pattern looks like this:

• Run a multi-site mine portfolio to reduce single-mine dependency risk
• Drive operational improvements (stable operations, recovery rates, equipment reliability) to produce “more, at lower cost”
• Extend mine life through exploration and improve capital efficiency by focusing on areas near existing infrastructure

Within the available information, the company also signals that in 2025 it is placing greater emphasis on “multiple mines contributing at the same time,” “stability in production and costs,” and “cash generation.” That reads as an attempt to reinforce the operating-and-capital-allocation playbook that typically determines outcomes in mining.

8. Is the current strategy consistent with the success story? (Narrative continuity)

Three themes stand out in the recent narrative:

• A clearer “investment completion → harvesting” message: In 2025, the company highlights record performance, cash generation, debt reduction, and capital allocation, and it has also announced a share repurchase program.
• But “revenue strength” and “profit momentum” still don’t fully line up: TTM revenue is strong, yet TTM EPS growth is materially negative—so even with a constructive narrative, earnings visibility may remain challenging.
• More emphasis on portfolio balance: Messaging around not being dependent on a single mine is becoming more prominent.

Overall, CDE’s narrative aligns with the core success pattern: “diversified portfolio operations + exploration + disciplined capital allocation during the harvesting phase.” At the same time, the near-term numbers show a twist, and the stronger the narrative becomes, the more important it is to break down “how durable the quality of earnings and cash really is.”

9. Hidden fragilities: Eight issues that can show up before the numbers do

Here we highlight vulnerabilities that are easy to miss precisely when things look strong—rather than signaling an “imminent crisis.”

1) The real concentration risk is mines and jurisdictions, not customers

Because gold and silver are highly standardized, the more meaningful concentration risk is typically dependence on operations, costs, and grades at specific mines, not customer concentration. When multiple mines are contributing, it can actually become harder to spot the downside if something breaks at one site.

2) With limited differentiation, cost inflation can quickly become a competitive disadvantage

With little product differentiation, cost creep can translate directly into relative disadvantage. Company disclosures also point to higher cost guidance at certain sites, making operating execution and cost control ongoing monitoring items.

3) Limited differentiation makes “repeatable execution” the moat—but breakdowns are costly

Ultimately, the edge comes from consistent site-level execution. If that slips, periods where “revenue grows but profit doesn’t follow” can become more frequent (which also connects to the recent TTM “twist”).

4) Supply chain: Fuel, reagents, parts, and outsourced construction can become bottlenecks

When procurement tightens, mining operations can see immediate impacts on production and costs. Within the available information, no major supply disruption is confirmed, but it remains a structural risk embedded in the model.

5) Organizational culture: Small cracks in safety, discipline, and retention tend to hit results with a lag

If safety practices and maintenance discipline weaken, the impact can later show up as incidents, downtime, and higher costs. Within the available information, there isn’t enough to generalize changes in employee experience. However, external articles reference labor-related settlement costs, and the possibility that compliance-driven “small costs” could accumulate may be relevant (treated as a one-off for now).

6) Profitability: Cash looks strong, while profit momentum is slowing

TTM cash generation looks strong, but EPS growth is materially negative and momentum is classified as decelerating. That combination can raise the question of whether “cash was temporarily strong, while sustainable earnings quality is a separate issue” (not a conclusion—just a monitoring point).

7) Financial burden: The sharper the upswing, the more the reversal tests resilience

Leverage is hard to describe as extremely heavy, but cash flexibility is also hard to call ample. Management emphasizes improved liquidity and debt reduction in 2025, making “whether the improvement story holds” an important watch item.

8) Regulation and permitting: ESG and environmental constraints often “hit with a lag”

Environmental factors—water, tailings, and community consent—can influence operating continuity and the cost structure over time. Rather than treating these as isolated events, it’s important to remember structurally that “tightening rules can become binding constraints.”

10. Competitive landscape: Who it competes with, and what drives outcomes

Gold and silver mining is a crowded industry, and competition is determined less by product features and more by four core factors:

• Mine quality (grade, mineability, life)
• Operating capability (stable operations, recovery rates, equipment reliability)
• Cost structure (fuel, labor, reagents, maintenance, transportation, etc.)
• Capital allocation (balancing investment with the balance sheet, limiting dilution)

Major competitors (examples)

• Pan American Silver (PAAS)
• Hecla Mining (HL)
• First Majestic Silver (AG)
• Fresnillo (FRES.L)
• Fortuna Mining (FSM)
• Streaming/royalty companies such as Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM) (not direct production competition, but adjacent in financing)

Competitive map: It’s not just operations—“asset acquisition” is also a battleground

• Primary production: Compete on operating stability, recovery rates, costs, and mine life
• Mine asset acquisition (M&A/claims/interests): Deal sourcing, financing capacity, and integration/operating execution are key battlegrounds
• Exploration: The strength of the geology team, prioritization, and the ability to invest consistently create differentiation
• Smelting and sales: Less about bargaining power and more about supply reliability and consistent specifications

Portfolio reshaping: Closing the SilverCrest acquisition

CDE completed its acquisition of SilverCrest Metals in February 2025, strengthening its portfolio with assets including Las Chispas (silver and gold) in Mexico. This move changes the “asset (mine) quality and mix” dimension of competition, and a major watch item going forward is how integration translates into operating performance and cash generation.

11. Does CDE have a moat? If it does, it’s a “cumulative” one

In commodity markets like gold and silver, customer lock-in (switching costs) is limited, and customers are not structurally tied to any single producer. So if a moat exists, it’s best thought of as a combination of:

• High-quality mining assets (grade, life, infrastructure)
• Mine-life extension through ongoing exploration (especially around existing operations)
• Multi-site operations that support more stable supply (diversifying downtime risk)
• Capital allocation discipline (balancing dilution, debt, and investment)

This isn’t a software-style network-effects moat. It’s a moat built by accumulating assets and operating capabilities over time. In Lynch terms, durability tends to come down to “integration execution,” “consistent exploration,” “cost control,” and “resilience across the cycle.”

12. Will CDE get stronger in the AI era? It’s primarily an “operations company,” not an “AI company”

CDE isn’t a business where network effects are central; value is driven by mining assets and operational execution. Mines do generate on-site data (grade models, equipment uptime, maintenance history, processing conditions, etc.), and AI can help as a productivity tool—but it’s not a setup where that data naturally becomes an exclusive asset that meaningfully blocks new entrants.

AI can help, but it’s unlikely to be the main determinant of winners and losers

• Where AI can plausibly help: Maintenance, process optimization, safety, and better planning accuracy—reducing operational waste.
• How AI can also compress differentiation: As AI spreads across the industry, improvements can become commoditized, and results tend to revert to differences in asset quality and operating discipline.

Because the core work is physical—mining, processing, logistics, and maintenance—the risk of AI “replacing the company” is low. On the other hand, even if back-office productivity improves, it’s more likely to raise the industry baseline than to create a unique, durable advantage.

13. Management, culture, and governance: Running the cycle with “site discipline × capital discipline”

CEO (Mitchell J. Krebs)’s external messaging centers on priorities in the harvesting phase: “after several years of major investment, generate cash, reduce debt, continue high-return investments, and begin shareholder returns (share repurchases).” That aligns with a typical playbook for a cyclical business: strengthen the balance sheet, invest selectively, and return capital during upcycles.

Communication style: Less abstraction, more “operating drivers → cash → allocation”

The messaging is largely explanatory: it lays out operating drivers such as price, acquired assets, expansion projects, and mine performance, then ties those drivers to free cash flow and capital allocation. The fact that the CEO, CFO, COO, and head of exploration appear together in earnings settings also suggests an emphasis on an integrated narrative linking operations, finance, and exploration.

Limited employee-review evidence: But common mining-industry themes still apply

Within the available information, there isn’t enough reliable evidence to generalize changes in employee experience. Accordingly, without drawing CDE-specific conclusions, commonly discussed themes for mining companies include: (positives) clear safety standards, procedures, and site discipline; visible operational outcomes; career mobility across multiple sites; (challenges) cycle-driven volatility; difficulty standardizing practices across dispersed operations; stress from plan changes tied to permitting and community engagement.

Governance watch item: Board expansion during an acquisition phase

It has been reported that the company expanded the board and added new directors in connection with the acquisition. This doesn’t allow a definitive conclusion about cultural change, but it is a notable data point as “organizational expansion entering an integration phase.”

14. A Lynch-style “thesis skeleton”: Understand CDE in 2 minutes

To understand CDE over the long term, the focus is less on forecasting gold and silver prices and more on whether the company becomes less likely to have its stamina worn down across the cycle. The three pillars are:

• Whether multiple mines contributing at the same time becomes the norm, reducing the impact of downtime at any one mine or grade volatility
• Whether the investment phase completes a turn, increasing the periods when cash is retained—and whether that cash is allocated with discipline to debt reduction, reinvestment, and returns
• Whether exploration consistently extends mine life, enabling capital-efficient growth near existing infrastructure

At the same time, the challenge with this “type” is that the simple logic “if revenue grows, profits will automatically grow” often fails. Even in the latest TTM, revenue is strong while EPS momentum is decelerating, making it essential to break results down across operations, costs, grades, and one-time items.

15. KPI tree: What investors should track (checklist)

CDE’s value can be described with a small set of KPIs—as a “machine that converts underground value into above-ground cash.” Translating the causal structure in the available information into an investor checklist yields:

Outcomes

• Earnings power (can it generate profits through the cycle?)
• Cash generation (does cash remain, given how investment-heavy the industry is?)
• Capital efficiency (is ROE improvement temporary, or does it become repeatable?)
• Cycle resilience (the stamina to avoid sinking in downcycles)
• Per-share value (the net result of dilution, returns, and debt management)

Intermediate KPIs (Value Drivers)

• Revenue = sales volume × realized price (including commodity-price effects)
• Output volume and operating stability (unplanned downtime, recovery rates)
• Unit costs (fuel, reagents, contractors, maintenance, logistics)
• Margins (often the main driver when revenue and profit diverge)
• Working-capital swings (inventory, receivables, payment terms)
• Capex level and timing (sustaining capex, growth capex)
• Mine life and replenishment pace (exploration outcomes)
• Financial leverage and liquidity (ability to withstand the cycle)
• Portfolio diversification (both the benefits and the added complexity)

Bottleneck hypotheses (Monitoring Points)

• Whether the gap between “revenue strength” and “profit momentum” persists, and whether the drivers (operations, costs, grade, one-time factors) can be clearly decomposed
• Whether cash generation reflects “structural strength in the harvesting phase” or “timing volatility”
• Whether simultaneous contributions from multiple mines are becoming established (reassessing effective concentration risk)
• How post-SilverCrest integration shows up in operations and cash
• Whether exploration is translating into mine-life extension (trends in resources, grade, and mine life)
• Whether the company can absorb cost overruns (inputs, contractors, maintenance)
• Whether downcycle resilience (leverage and cash flexibility) is sufficient
• Whether safety, site discipline, and culture translate into operating stability