Why I'm Excited About This Gold Market - Casey Research

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Now, even though [mining] equities prices continue to decline, corporate performance is increasing, and increasing dramatically. A cursory look at producers' income statements tells a dramatic story: earnings and cash generation, on a per share basis, are rising in dramatic fashion. Capital expenditures are increasingly funded with internally generated cash rather than equity issuances or debt. In fact, even in the face of the gold equities decline, many gold producers are generating cash so fast that even after funding hefty capital budgets, they are able to return cash to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and increased dividends.