Markets love a good yarn – and there are few more compelling narratives right now than the reinvention of Rio Tinto. The cocksure miner that just refused to blink on Chinese iron ore contract pricing bears little resemblance to the debt-laden entity that crawled cap-in-hand to Chinalco.

Last week, Rio amassed $15.2bn in the UK's biggest non-bank rights issue; on Monday, Rio offloaded a non-core asset for another $1.2bn. Net debt has halved in three months. Analysts are appreciative: buys outnumber sells by more than three to one.

What the story needs now is perspective. It is true that Rio's funding crisis has been averted; credit default swap prices are less than a quarter of this year's highs. But the damage still being wrought by Rio's all-cash acquisition of Alcan two years ago should not be glossed over. The terms of Monday's sale show that Rio is a seller in some discomfort. Why else allow the buyer to pay $200m in shares? Rio wants to exit packaging altogether – Rio has no use for 8 per cent of Wisconsin-based Bemis.