There's weak commodity prices, but I think another reason why...

There's weak commodity prices, but I think another reason why the share price is lower than where it should be is because there's no confidence management are good custodians of shareholders' money. They blew $30bn+ on Alcan - but what's worse is they wrote down $3bn out of a $3.8bn coal acquisition made in more recent times. That's a staggering writedown in percentage terms, coming so soon after an acquisition. It's like they're taking shareholders money by the bundles and flushing it down the toilet. You just can't expect a share price to rise when management has that kind of record as wealth managers.

Thankfully RIO has solid tier 1 assets - and its best asset, their Pilbara mines, have a mine life in excess of 30 years on conservative estimates. So the business will outlive bad management and there's plenty of opportunity for the business to return to its former disciplined, shareholder's equity focused company.

IMHO this also presents a great buying opportunity for those intending to hold it for 5+ year time frames.