Shares in large-cap mining companies have seen dramatic swings in sentiment over the past decade. Ten years ago the sector was on the cusp of a massive commodity boom that had investors enthralled. After suffering savage falls in the financial crisis, they were back at new highs by 2011, but then slipped into a painful five-year decline. After a spell in the wilderness, large-cap mining stocks have been some of the big winners in 2016 - but how do you find the most promising signs of improvement in a notoriously unpredictable sector?
Forecasting trends in the mining sector is not easy because there are so many moving parts that influence prices. In many cases, companies leveraged up during the commodity boom only to see global demand for metals and minerals slow down drastically in recent years. That forced some of the industry's biggest names into massive write-downs and slashing costs…
