NEW YORK, Jan 9, 2026, 15:33 EST — Regular session
- Freeport-McMoRan shares were up about 4% in afternoon trading, following stronger copper prices.
- JPMorgan bumped up its FCX price target to $68, while Goldman increased its first-half copper forecast.
- Dividend record date is Jan 15, and investors are also bracing for the Jan 22 earnings report.
Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) shares were up $2.37, or 4.4%, to $56.59 in afternoon trading on Friday. The stock has moved between $54.22 and $56.71 and is sitting within about 1% of its 52-week high of $57.12. (Freeport-McMoRan Investors)
Copper prices climbed, lifting miners that tend to track the metal’s ups and downs. Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) — a global reference price — was up about 1.8% at $12,943 a metric ton. (Business Recorder)
A day earlier, JPMorgan analyst Bill Peterson lifted his price target on Freeport to $68 from $58 and reiterated an “Overweight” rating. A price target is the level an analyst expects a stock could hit; “overweight” is a bet it will beat its peers. (TipRanks)
Goldman Sachs got more upbeat on the metal this week, raising its copper price forecast for the first half of 2026 to $12,750 a ton. The bank said prices have “overshot” its view of fair value, while pointing to U.S. refined-copper tariff policy as a major near-term unknown.
Macro remains a back-seat driver for metals, with traders watching the dollar and shifts in U.S. rate bets. “The bulk of the U.S. economy is trimming employment,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, after Friday’s U.S. jobs report. (Reuters)
Deal chatter in mining piled on. Rio Tinto said it’s in early talks to buy Glencore, a potential mega-merger that’s yanked the sector back into the spotlight; Rio’s U.S.-listed shares slid 3.5% while Southern Copper jumped 5.9%. (Reuters)
Freeport investors have a dividend date coming up, too. On the company’s website, it lists a Jan 15 record date for a total cash dividend of 15 cents per share — made up of a 7.5-cent base payout plus a 7.5-cent variable dividend that can rise or fall with cash generation — payable on Feb 2. (Freeport-McMoRan Investors)
Earnings are up next. Freeport reports quarterly results on Jan 22, with traders zeroing in on realized copper prices and costs, plus any change in tone around 2026 output and capital spending. (Barron’s)
Still, it’s a two-way setup. Copper has been volatile even at these elevated levels, and a steeper pullback — or a policy turn on U.S. copper tariffs — would likely smack miners quickly.
For Freeport, the next dates to watch are the Jan 15 dividend record date and the Jan 22 earnings report. Until then, the stock is likely to keep tracking copper prices and whatever new twists emerge in the mining deal chatter.
