Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) Stock Drops Even After Beating Earnings — Here’s Why

TLDR

• FCX beat Q2 earnings estimates with adjusted EPS of 74 cents vs. the 59–62 cent Wall Street consensus.
• Revenue came in at $7.03 billion, down 7% year-on-year but above the $6.71 billion analyst estimate.
• Higher copper prices — up 41.5% year-on-year — drove the beat, with realized copper price hitting $6.17 per pound vs. $4.54 a year ago.
• Copper production fell 18.2% to 786 million pounds due to ongoing disruption at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
• FCX stock fell 2.2% to $63.56 after the open, despite the earnings beat.

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Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) posted a strong Q2 earnings beat on Thursday, powered by a copper price surge that more than made up for weaker output at its flagship Grasberg mine.

$FCX Q2 2026 earnings: Record Copper Prices Mask Severe Operational Stumbles

Freeport-McMoRan delivered a 27% YoY increase in Net Income to $984 million, but this was entirely a macro bailout. A soaring realized copper price of $6.17/lb (up 36% YoY) covered up deep operational… pic.twitter.com/WhrMtLRYjK

— Finsee (@Finsee_main) July 23, 2026

The Phoenix-based miner reported adjusted earnings of 74 cents per share for the three months ended June 30. That topped Wall Street estimates of between 59 and 62 cents, depending on the source. A year ago, the figure was 54 cents.

Revenue came in at $7.03 billion — down 7% from a year earlier, but ahead of the analyst consensus of $6.71 billion.

FCX stock was up 1.4% in premarket trading after the report dropped. By the time the market opened, it had flipped, falling 2.2% to $63.56.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., FCX

Copper prices were the headline driver. The quarterly average realized copper price hit $6.17 per pound, up from $4.54 per pound in Q2 2025 — a 35.9% jump. Broader market copper prices rose 41.5% year-on-year in the quarter.

Demand signals from China, supply concerns, and geopolitical tension in the Middle East all contributed to the price move.

Production Takes a Hit

Output was a different story. Copper production fell 18.2% to 786 million pounds in Q2. Gold production dropped even harder, down 39.4% to 192,000 ounces.

Copper sales, excluding purchases, totaled 710 million recoverable pounds — well below the one billion pounds recorded in the same period last year. Gold sales came in at 123,000 ounces, down 76% year-on-year.

The culprit is Grasberg. The world’s second-largest copper mine and largest gold mine has been running at reduced capacity since September 8, when roughly 800,000 metric tons of wet material flooded the site.

Grasberg Recovery Slower Than Expected

Freeport said earlier this year that the Grasberg recovery is taking longer than originally anticipated. The mine is currently running at around 50% of capacity.

The company expects to bring that up to 65% by the end of this year. Full capacity recovery isn’t expected until the end of 2027.

Grasberg is majority-owned by Indonesian state company PT Freeport Indonesia, with Freeport-McMoRan operating the complex.

The copper price tailwind was strong enough to absorb the production shortfall and still deliver a clean earnings beat — the kind of result that keeps analysts onside even as operational challenges drag on.

Freeport-McMoRan is the world’s largest publicly traded copper producer. For Q2, the numbers showed what elevated copper prices can do for margins, even when volume is running well below normal.

FCX was trading at $63.56 as of the open on Thursday, down 2.02% on the session.