It may be time for big, diversified miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to engage in some contrarian thinking about their businesses.
Both BHP and Rio released production reports this week that on the surface were fairly positive, yet the market reaction was underwhelming, heightening a trend whereby the share prices of resource producers lag the prices of the commodities they sell.
There were no real nasty surprises in either report, with both companies remaining committed to large capital spending on projects to boost output, despite slowing growth in major consumer China, renewed recession in Europe and a less than stellar expansion in the US.
The problem for Rio and BHP is that the market doesn't seem to believe them and appears not to have much faith in the outlook for big commodity producers for some time.
(More in Billboard)