At the time of writing, the gold price was ascending again, up more than 5% to $3,381. This price scurry was well timed for Gold Fields — which confirmed it would be taking out Australia-based Gold Road Resources in a premium-priced deal valued at about R44bn.

It’s a sizeable transaction, representing about 12% of Gold Fields’ market value on the JSE. I have spoken before — slightly warily — about commodity counters’ capital allocation at the top of a cycle, and I suppose one might question whether Gold Fields might be better off capitalising on generating strong cash flows from its current portfolio to pay bumper dividends...

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