Such views are unsurprising given how far commodities prices have fallen in recent months and have been reflected in plunging share prices across the mining and oil and gas sectors.
Indeed as the graph below shows mining stocks have been particularly poor performers in the past few years and have been one of the primary reasons for the significant investor focus on mid-caps.
What was encouraging for long suffering shareholders, however, was the announcement of a further, brutal cost cutting plans, including 6000 job cuts in order to decrease costs by $500m a year. These plans were being undertaken, Cutifani said, to ensure that Anglo American “comes out the other side better than anyone else”.
But, while Anglo American has perhaps required more restructuring than some of its peers, it is by no means the only firm that has had to focus on cutting costs. The past 18 months have seen a number of asset sales, mergers, demergers and cost cutting exercises throughout the industry, which analysts argue has left many in the sector in a strong position for the day when prices do eventually rise again.
That is not to say that such a scenario will be coming any time soon, nor is it to say that even were prices to go up once more, that they will ever reach the heady heights seen at the peak of the supercycle. But, even in the current low price environment, the shares have been hit so hard that value, it would seem, it beginning to emerge.
Richard Buxton, head of UK equities at Old Mutual Global Investors says that there are some names in the commodities space that are getting into value territory.
“Even at very low commodity prices, companies like Glencore and Rio Tinto are likely to make their dividend payments which makes them an intriguing prospect,” he says.
Likewise, BP and Royal Dutch Shell are getting down to yields that would suggest people are beginning to question the sustainability of their dividends, Buxton said.
“If dividends are sustainable, with base rates as low as they are and unlikely to rise sharply, some of these companies are beginning to look rather attractive for income managers,” he added.
