New York, Jan 7, 2026, 19:54 EST — After-hours
- FCX ended down 1.16% at $55.50, backing off a 52-week high set a day earlier
- Copper slipped from a record as traders tracked tariff-driven price gaps between U.S. and London benchmarks
- Attention turns to the Jan. 9 U.S. jobs report and Freeport’s Jan. 15 dividend record date
Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) shares fell 1.16% to $55.50 on Wednesday, easing after the copper miner hit a 52-week high a day earlier. The stock finished about 2.8% below that peak on roughly 20.8 million shares, above its 50-day average, while the Dow and S&P 500 ended lower.
Investors are trading Freeport as a copper proxy, and the metal’s run has started to wobble. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange dropped as much as 3% to $12,842.50 a metric ton on Wednesday after hitting an all-time high of $13,387.50 in the prior session.
The benchmark gap is part of the story now. A persistent premium on the CME’s U.S. copper contract over the LME price — a spread traders try to arbitrage for profit — has pulled metal into U.S. warehouses and drained stocks in China’s bonded zones, where copper sits in ports before customs clearance. A U.S. investigation into possible copper tariffs is due to report in June, a Reuters columnist wrote.
On the stock side, Jefferies analysts lifted their price target on Freeport to $68 and kept a buy rating, flagging what they see as upside risk from firm copper and gold markets. “FCX continues to be one of our top picks,” the analysts wrote, estimating fourth-quarter EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — of $1.62 billion and earnings per share of 35 cents, versus consensus expectations of $1.32 billion and 25 cents. Proactiveinvestors NA
Costs are the other lever traders keep coming back to. Zacks Investment Research wrote on Wednesday that Freeport’s average unit net cash cost — the cash cost per pound after by-product credits — rose to $1.40 in the third quarter and that the company expects $2.47 in the fourth, after sales volumes fell due to the September mud rush at Grasberg in Indonesia. It contrasted that with Southern Copper’s reported cash costs of 42 cents a pound in the third quarter and BHP’s cost guidance at key mines for fiscal 2026.
But copper’s tariff-driven premium can unwind if policy shifts or if metal starts flowing back into the LME system, and miners can reprice fast when that spread narrows. Freeport also has to deliver on its Grasberg restart after the fatal September incident; Chief Executive Kathleen Quirk told investors the company planned to restore production there by July.
Next up, traders are watching the U.S. Employment Situation report for December on Friday, Jan. 9, and the December CPI report on Tuesday, Jan. 13, both at 8:30 a.m. ET, for cues on rates and the dollar — and, by extension, metals. Freeport’s board has declared a $0.15 per share quarterly cash dividend payable Feb. 2 to shareholders of record Jan. 15.
