Fourteen months ago, IAMGOLD carried more than $800 million in net debt. As of June 30, 2026, it holds a net cash position. That is not a rounding error. It is what happens when one mine hits full stride at exactly the right moment in the gold cycle.

What’s Driving the Market

Gold climbed from near $4,000 in early August to an intraday high of $4,557.60 on August 19, its strongest level since June. The catalyst was a Treasury Department announcement that it would double the size of its liquidity support buyback operations for 10-to-30 year securities, pushing long yields lower and reducing gold’s opportunity cost. Soft jobs and inflation data also trimmed the probability of a September Fed rate hike to roughly 31%, per CME FedWatch. Central banks added structural support: the World Gold Council reported net purchases of 288.9 tonnes in Q2 2026, a 62% increase year-over-year and the strongest second quarter on record.

The Investment Opportunity

IAMGOLD’s Q2 numbers tell the operating leverage story directly. Revenue reached $856.9 million, adjusted EBITDA was $507.3 million, and mine-site free cash flow hit $368.9 million for the quarter, a 169% increase versus Q2 2025. Year-to-date mine-site free cash flow reached $893.5 million.

The engine is Côté Gold, the 70%-owned open-pit in northeastern Ontario, which produced 67,300 attributable ounces in Q2 and has achieved its nameplate processing rate of 36,000 tonnes per day. A Q4 2026 technical report is expected to outline a path toward 40,000 tonnes per day through targeted debottlenecking, underpinned by a combined Côté-Gosselin resource of 20.3 million measured and indicated ounces. That is a genuine expansion case, not a placeholder. Full-year guidance stands at 720,000 to 820,000 attributable ounces. Shares rose 9.74% in after-hours trading after the Q2 release, despite an EPS miss, because the market focused on cash generation. That is re-rating behavior.

Risks to Monitor

Essakane in Burkina Faso is the concentrated risk. A royalty decree enacted in April 2025 raised the minimum rate for gold above $3,000 per ounce; the average royalty at Essakane ran at 12% in Q2 versus 9% a year earlier. Security in the Sahel is not improving, and cash repatriation from Burkina Faso depends on a revised framework that must function reliably for the balance sheet to reflect what it appears to show. At Côté, unit cash costs tracked toward the upper half of full-year guidance in Q2. Management expects contractor crushing elimination and new equipment to bring costs down by year-end, but that improvement has yet to appear in reported numbers.

Bottom Line

IAMGOLD’s financial transformation is real but not fully priced. A company that carried heavy net debt 14 months ago is now generating close to $900 million in mine-site free cash flow in a single half-year, buying back shares, and preparing to publish an expansion plan for its flagship Canadian asset. The risk is concentrated in West Africa. Investors who separate the African exposure from the Canadian core will find a valuation that still reflects yesterday’s debt-laden profile. The Q4 Côté update is the next inflection point.