RE:Keno Hill (HL's wild child) Need to crack the code. In the report, referring to Keno, the word 'challenging' soon appeared. They're still milliing at 277 tpd, about what AXU was, but at least they seem to be sustaining sufficient feed.
Anyway I found the response by the market to the report puzzling; typically a share price drop would be in order.
To me this seems like a weak report, and the news headlines don't even make sense.
In the report comparisons are made between Q4 24 and Q1 23 (43% up!) which was severely affected by the Lucky event, thus greatly enhancing the Q1 24 total results when compared with Q4 23, but perhaps a more valid comparison would be between Q1 24 and Q1 23. (Simply Wall Street actually reported this way, but Gurufocus didn't).
That 1-year comparison shows a decrease in all results despite the contribution of Keno, even though there was no Keno contribution a year ago, and an increase in total silver cash costs of 123% from 2.14 to 4.78 and an increase in silver AISC of 46%, from 8.96 to 13.14 with inflation the prime suspect. Gross sales (-5%), profit (-78%), and free cash flow (-120%) all declined.
Silver production was roughly the same as Q1 2023, and silver price realized was about 10% higher.
Also, Green's Creek and Lucky were positive,but Keno and Casa Berardi ate huge amounts of money.
As to the stock price bump on this sort of report: like I always say - you never know how the market will react. Companies can put out a really good report and see their stock drop, or a so-so report and the stock rises.
I like Hecla, and frequently hold and trade it, but it's necessary to be objective. And improvements are ongoing for the rest of '24 and into '25.
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From Zack's (sell side analyst)
(via Yahoo Finance):
Hecla Mining (HL) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.01 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $0.02 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.01 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.
This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 150%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this precious metals company would post a loss of $0.02 per share when it actually produced a loss of $0.04, delivering a surprise of -100%.
Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times.
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Zack's reco: Hold.