Key Takeaways
- Southern Copper shares fell 7.3% on Thursday. Freeport-McMoRan fell 6.3% and Teck Resources 6.2% as copper futures slid about 2.7%.
- The drop came two days after Southern Copper reported its best quarter yet, with net income up 63% to $1.8 billion.
- Analysts expect Southern Copper’s earnings to peak in 2026 and then dip slightly in 2027 and 2028.
- The stock went into Thursday at 26x forward earnings, above its five-year average of 22x, so it had little room to absorb a weaker copper price.
Southern Copper (SCCO) sank 7.3% on Thursday, two days after reporting the best quarter in its history. Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) fell 6.3% and Teck Resources (TECK) dropped 6.2% as copper futures slid about 2.7% by early afternoon.
Record Highs, Priced In
Southern Copper reported its third-quarter results on Tuesday, October 20. Net sales rose 39% from a year earlier to $4.7 billion, and net income jumped 63% to $1.8 billion.
On Thursday’s earnings call, CFO Raul Jacob said the company “hit record highs for net sales, adjusted EBITDA, and net income for the second consecutive quarter.”
Higher prices did most of the work. The company says better prices for all its products drove its sales growth, even though it sold less copper, molybdenum and silver in the first nine months of 2026 than a year earlier.
And analysts already see this year as the peak, with normalized EPS of $7.92 for 2026 slipping to $7.34 by 2028…
Those estimates are sensitive to copper prices, so a sustained decline could push them lower.
A Premium Price on Peak Earnings
Southern Copper went into Thursday at 26x forward earnings, above its five-year average of 22x (though below its 34x peak in May 2024)…
Thursday’s drop took it to about 24x, still above average. So when copper slips even a few percent, a stock that’s priced at a premium on earnings expected to shrink has room to fall.
The growth that could lift those estimates is a few years off, too: management expects its Tía María project in Peru to start up in the first half of 2028.
TIKR Tracks 18 Analysts on Southern Copper. How Many Say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Southern Copper, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Southern Copper’s Analyst Ratings
Copper Calls the Shots
Freeport had no news of its own on Thursday, so its drop looks like copper’s doing. Teck’s is harder to pin on copper alone: it got a strike notice at its Highland Valley Copper operations on Wednesday afternoon, and the union can walk out as early as Saturday, October 24. Teck’s own third-quarter report on October 29 will be the next read on the group.
The quarter was about as good as it gets for Southern Copper. The price is my problem. At about 24x forward earnings on profits analysts expect to shrink, buying here is mostly a bet that copper stays near records. I’d hold off until the stock gets cheaper, or until Tía María shows it’s on track for 2028.
Of course, if copper bounces back, the miners could recover just as quickly.
So what is Southern Copper Stock Actually Worth?
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