Harmony Guides FY EPS to R44–R48, Up as Much as 108%

Harmony Gold Mining Company said earnings per share for the financial year ended June 30 will be between R44 and R48, an increase of 90% to 108% on the R23.13 reported for the 2025 financial year, or $2.65 to $2.85 in dollar terms against $1.27 a year earlier.

Harmony Gold Mining Company has told shareholders that its profit for the financial year ended 30 June will land far above the prior year, guiding earnings per share to a range of R44 to R48. That compares with R23.13 in the 2025 financial year — an increase of between 90% and 108%.

The dollar translation is even stronger. Harmony expects EPS of between $2.65 and $2.85 for the year, against $1.27 the year before, a rise of between 109% and 124%. The gap between the rand and dollar growth rates is itself a piece of information: it means the currency worked in the same direction as the metal price rather than against it, so investors holding the US line captured more of the improvement than those holding the Johannesburg shares.

What a trading statement is, and why this one matters

Under South African listing rules, a company must publish a trading statement as soon as it is reasonably certain that results will differ from the prior period by 20% or more. The rule exists to stop a surprise landing on the market with the full results. Harmony's disclosure, reported by Mining Weekly, clears that threshold several times over.

A doubling of earnings per share is rare for an established producer that is not making an acquisition or selling an asset. It usually points to operating leverage: the cost of running a deep-level gold mine is largely fixed in the short run — labour, power, ventilation, hoisting — so when the received price per ounce climbs, a disproportionate share of the increase falls to the bottom line. The reverse is equally true on the way down, which is why gold equities trade with more volatility than the metal itself.

The midpoint of the guided rand range works out to roughly R46 a share, and the dollar midpoint to about $2.75. Those are illustrative arithmetic on the company's own range, not figures Harmony published, but they give a sense of where consensus is likely to settle before the audited numbers arrive.

Gold and copper both in the mix

Harmony describes itself as a gold and copper miner, and that second word has become steadily more important to how the market frames the company. A producer with a copper leg is no longer a pure bullion proxy; it carries exposure to industrial demand, grid build-out and electrification alongside the safe-haven bid that drives gold.

The company did not, in this statement, break the earnings improvement down by metal or by mine, and the audited results will be the first place to look for that split. The questions that matter to anyone modelling the next year are straightforward:

• How much of the EPS jump came from a higher received price per ounce versus higher volumes?
• What happened to all-in sustaining cost per ounce, the industry's standard measure of what it actually costs to keep an ounce coming out of the ground?
• How did the rand-per-kilogram gold price behave relative to the dollar price — the currency effect that South African miners live and die by?
• Whether the board converts the earnings surge into a materially larger dividend, or holds cash for the copper growth pipeline.

The US listing has already moved

Harmony's American line, traded under the symbol HMY, closed at 22.02 in its most recent session, up 4.41% on the day from a previous close of 21.09. The day's range ran from 21.03 to 22.05, so the shares finished within a whisker of the session high — the kind of close that suggests buyers were still in control at the bell rather than a spike that faded.

That move came against a broadly weak tape. The S&P 500 tracker (SPY) ended at $762.60, down 0.84%; the Nasdaq 100 fund (QQQ) closed at $710.93, off 0.72%; and the Dow 30 tracker (DIA) fell 1.27% to $527.51. A gold and copper producer rising more than four percent while all three headline US benchmarks fell is the classic pattern of precious-metals equities acting as a diversifier rather than a beta play — and a reminder of why generalist funds keep a sliver of the sector even when they dislike mining economics.

Reading the guidance against the sector

Harmony is not an isolated case. Producers across the gold complex have been reporting sharply better numbers on the back of a strong metal price, and several have paired those results with higher payouts. The pattern to watch is what management teams do with the windfall. Gold miners have a long and unhappy history of spending high-price years on acquisitions that look expensive once the cycle turns; the ones that have been rewarded by the market more recently are those that returned cash, cut debt and left the balance sheet cleaner than they found it.

For Harmony specifically, the copper ambition complicates that choice. Developing copper is capital-hungry and slow, and a year of exceptional gold earnings is exactly the moment a board would want to fund it. Shareholders will have to weigh a bigger cheque now against a more diversified company later.

What to watch next

The trading statement is a floor and a ceiling, not a result. The audited figures will fill in revenue, cost per ounce, production volumes by operation, net debt and the final dividend — none of which the company has yet put on the table. Guidance for the year ahead will matter more to the share price than the year just closed, because the market has largely priced the metal move already.

Three things will decide whether the HMY line holds its gain. First, whether the reported EPS lands in the upper half of the guided range rather than the lower. Second, whether unit costs stayed contained, which determines how much of any future price move drops through. Third, the capital allocation call. A company that has just doubled its earnings per share has options; the market will judge it on which one it picks.

Key facts

• FY 2026 EPS guidance (rand): R44 to R48, up 90% to 108% on R23.13
• FY 2026 EPS guidance (dollar): $2.65 to $2.85, up 109% to 124% on $1.27
• HMY last close: 22.02, +4.41% (as of 20 Aug 2026, 20:00 GMT)
• Financial year end: 30 June 2026

Frequently asked questions

How much does Harmony expect earnings per share to rise?

Harmony guided earnings per share for the financial year ended 30 June to between R44 and R48, an increase of 90% to 108% on the R23.13 reported in the 2025 financial year. Measured in dollars, EPS is expected between $2.65 and $2.85 against $1.27 the year before, a rise of 109% to 124%.

Why is the dollar increase larger than the rand increase?

The dollar EPS growth of 109% to 124% exceeds the rand growth of 90% to 108%, which means the currency translation worked in shareholders' favour over the period rather than eroding the result. Investors holding the US-listed line therefore captured a larger percentage improvement than those holding the South African shares.

What is a trading statement?

South African listing rules require a company to publish a trading statement as soon as it is reasonably certain that results will differ from the prior comparable period by at least 20%. It gives the market advance warning of the direction and rough size of the change, ahead of the audited financial statements.

How did Harmony's US-listed shares perform?

The HMY line closed at 22.02, up 4.41% from a previous close of 21.09, with a session range of 21.03 to 22.05. That gain came on a day when the S&P 500 tracker fell 0.84%, the Nasdaq 100 fund fell 0.72% and the Dow 30 tracker dropped 1.27%.

Is Harmony purely a gold producer?

No. Harmony describes itself as a gold and copper miner. The copper exposure means the company is not a pure bullion proxy: its results carry sensitivity to industrial and electrification demand alongside the safe-haven forces that drive the gold price, and copper development also competes for capital.

What has Harmony not yet disclosed?

The trading statement gives an EPS range only. It does not break out revenue, production volumes by operation, all-in sustaining cost per ounce, net debt, the split between gold and copper contribution, or the final dividend. Those details arrive with the audited full-year results.

Sources

• Harmony to report substantially higher full-year earnings — Mining Weekly

Photo: Marjan Taghipour · Pexels Licence — source