The Investors Chronicle in its write-up called it an unholy trinity: cost inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and a tight labour market. That was the summation of Tuesday’s interims from the Mexico-focused silver miner Fresnillo PLC (LSE:FRES).
Keeping with the biblical theme, Wednesday was judgement day with the analysts having had the best part of 24 hours to run the numbers.
The net effect was a further 4% decline in the share price. “Inflation could have been worse,” said UBS in a short post-results note.
There was little more context other than a reiteration of the ‘neutral’ recommendation from Swiss house, which reckons the City is being a little too optimistic on the cost pressure faced by Fresnillo.
A note from Jefferies summed up the American bank’s assessment of the results: It was, it said, a case of ‘one step forward, and one back'.
Like UBS, it is on the fence recommendation-wise, as was Barclays, which was mildly perturbed about the stinginess of the dividend payment.
In early afternoon trading, the stock was off 4.15% at 682.1p.