On August 17, Freeport-McMoRan rose 3.05% in regular trading, trading at $68.51 USD/share, with turnover of $239 million. The rally came amid an extreme tightening in global copper markets that lifted the entire sector.

The LME copper spot-to-three-month futures spread surged above $500, marking the largest backwardation since the 2021 squeeze event — a classic signal of critically depleted near-term inventories. Analysts attribute the dislocation to two forces: expectations that the Trump administration will impose tariffs on refined copper, prompting global traders to divert massive volumes to the US and starving non-US markets of spot supply; and a 3.9% year-over-year decline in Q2 copper production among miners covering 55% of global supply, including Freeport-McMoRan itself. Jefferies noted that even under a modest 2% global GDP growth scenario, the copper market will maintain a significant supply deficit over the next 12 months.

Within the Copper sector, Southern Copper Corp rose 3.71%, TREKOR METALS rose 4.13%, and Ero Copper rose 2.9%.

(The above content is based on publicly available market information, generated by a program or algorithm, and is intended solely as a stock movement alert. It does not constitute investment advice or a basis for trading decisions.)