The chairman of Barrick is a philosophical supporter of the value of hedging. Gold Fields , in contrast, is completely unhedged. Gold Fields closed its hedge book on February 16 of this year, because its prescient CEO believed that the current low gold price was unsustainable. Morgan Stanley's gold analysts do a particularly good job of looking at the relationship between the gold price and the net asset value of a gold producer. They say that Newmont and Homestake are among the most highly levered of the large-scale producers.
Some smaller companies are even more levered.
Also, every gold company has its own cost function for getting its gold out of the ground. A gold company's leverage can increase or decrease depending on where the gold price stands in relation to its profitability. A company that is on the borderline of profitability, based on the current gold price, is in the sweet spot of leverage. With the gold price slightly lower, it can simply shutter its operations and sit on its inventory like King Midas. But as the gold price rises, it can light up its operations and cash in.