One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$11.79 our estimate vs market $71.07
Wall Street consensus: $72.05 (511.3% higher than our fair-value estimate)
503% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
FCX · NYQ · Basic Materials · Copper
Current price
$71.07
52-week range
$35.15 - $80.24
Market cap
$102.06B
Balance sheet
Watch
17.62x Strong cushion
Net debt $6.28B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Returns 14.8% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
- Risk Net debt grew 137.6% over 3 years.
- Risk Stock trades 25.2% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
Freeport-McMoRan is a large mining company that digs up and sells essential metals, with most of its money coming from copper. Because copper is crucial for everything from construction and plumbing to electric vehicles, the company’s financial success is closely tied to the global price and demand for this metal.
How the company got here
Freeport-McMoRan's story began over a century ago in 1912 as a sulfur mining company in Texas. A huge turning point was the discovery of the massive Grasberg mine in Indonesia, which is one of the world's largest sources of copper and gold. Another key move was buying a major competitor, Phelps Dodge, in 2007, which added a number of large mines in North and South America to its portfolio. After a brief and costly venture into the oil and gas business, the company has refocused on its roots as a pure-play mining giant, primarily for copper.
What it actually does
Freeport-McMoRan is a giant mining company that digs valuable metals out of the earth. Think of them as a global-scale prospector with massive, long-lasting mines in places like the United States, Peru, Chile, and Indonesia. They don't make things you'd buy in a store; instead, they provide the essential raw materials. The main metals they find and sell are copper, gold, and molybdenum, which are then used by other companies to make everything from electrical wires and plumbing to jewelry and super-strong steel.
Copper
This is by far the company's most important business, making up the majority of its revenue (the total money it brings in from sales). Copper is a critical metal for the modern world, used in everything from the wiring in your house and car to the giant cables that make up the power grid. Companies that build infrastructure, make electronics, and develop renewable energy projects buy copper from Freeport-McMoRan. Because of the global push for electric vehicles and clean energy, which all rely heavily on copper, this part of the business is central to the company's future.
Gold
While Freeport-McMoRan is a major copper miner, it often finds large amounts of gold in the same locations, especially at its giant Grasberg mine in Indonesia. This gold is considered a valuable by-product of its main copper operations. The company sells this gold on the world market, where it's bought for uses like making jewelry, as a secure investment, and in some high-end electronics. This business provides a significant, secondary stream of income for the company.
Molybdenum
This is a lesser-known but important metal that Freeport-McMoRan produces, and it is one of the world's largest suppliers. Molybdenum (often called 'moly') has an extremely high melting point and is primarily used to make steel alloys (a mix of metals) incredibly strong and resistant to corrosion. Customers in the steel industry buy molybdenum to create durable materials for things like airplanes, car parts, and heavy-duty industrial equipment. While a smaller part of the company's business than copper or gold, it's a key industrial material.
What management is betting on now
Management's current focus is on getting more out of the mines they already own rather than making big, risky acquisitions. They are investing heavily in technology to extract more copper from their existing sites in the Americas and are expanding their massive underground operations in Indonesia. The company is betting on the growing global demand for copper, which is essential for the transition to a green economy, including electric vehicles, wind turbines, and upgraded power grids. They are also building new processing facilities, like a smelter in Indonesia, to have more control over their supply chain (the entire process from mining the ore to delivering a finished product).
Price history
How the share price has moved
—
Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$673.00M
FY2024 Q4
$197.00M
FY2025 Q1
$-114.00M
FY2025 Q2
$934.00M
FY2025 Q3
$608.00M
FY2025 Q4
$-312.00M
FY2026 Q1
$522.00M
Revenue
$7.03B
Net income
$984.00M
Diluted EPS
0.68
Operating cash flow
$2.05B
Free cash flow
—
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.23B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
0.61
Operating cash flow
$1.50B
Free cash flow
$522.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.63B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$693.00M
Free cash flow
$-312.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.97B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
0.46
Operating cash flow
$1.66B
Free cash flow
$608.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$7.58B
Net income
$772.00M
Diluted EPS
0.53
Operating cash flow
$2.19B
Free cash flow
$934.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.73B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
0.24
Operating cash flow
$1.06B
Free cash flow
$-114.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.72B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
—
Operating cash flow
$1.44B
Free cash flow
$197.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.79B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
0.36
Operating cash flow
$1.87B
Free cash flow
$673.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $11.79 vs current price $71.07
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $72.05 (511.3% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $11.79 a share — about 83.4% below today's price of $71.07, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $6.3B. Interest coverage 17.6x.
Net debt
$6.28B
Interest coverage
17.62x
Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 17.6 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
FCX
BASELINE
Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
Total debt $10.36B Interest coverage 17.62x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $8.62B Interest coverage 18.96x +8% vs FCX Has roughly the same debt cushion as FCX.
Total debt $28.43B Interest coverage 12.10x -31% vs FCX Carries about 1.5x less debt cushion than FCX.
Total debt $22.85B Interest coverage 8.45x -52% vs FCX Carries about 2.1x less debt cushion than FCX.
Total debt $5.60B Interest coverage 48.14x +173% vs FCX Carries about 2.7x more debt cushion than FCX.
What you should know
The case for and against FCX
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Returns 14.8% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
-
Dividend yield is 0.8% with 32-year payout history.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 137.6% over 3 years.
-
Stock trades 25.2% above its 5-year average P/E.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
35.01x
Forward P/E
17.19x
P/B
5.08x
P/S
3.95x
EV/EBITDA
12.61x
PEG ratio
4.45x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
38.3%
Operating margin
33.4%
Net margin
11.4%
ROE
14.8%
ROA
7.6%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.32x
Current ratio
2.07x
Quick ratio
0.80x
Total debt
$10.36B
Total cash
$4.08B
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$25.87B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
16.2%
EPS TTM
2.03
EPS 5Y CAGR
-14.0%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$5.90B
Free CF TTM
$1.12B
FCF margin
4.3%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.8%
Payout ratio
29.4%
Last ex-div date
2026-07-15