Copper Stocks Tumble as Tariff Doubt Reverses Record Rally: Freeport-McMoRan Sinks 8%, Teck Resources and Southern Copper Drop 7%

Shares of Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX | FCX Price Prediction) are sliding early Thursday as a record rally in copper reverses inside a single session. Freeport-McMoRan stock is down 8% to $70.43 after reports cast doubt on the refined-copper tariffs that had powered the metal to fresh highs earlier this week. The scarcity trade that built up all summer is unwinding in real time, and copper miners are traveling with it.

The selloff runs deep across the group. Also under pressure, Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) stock is down 7% to $195.66, and Teck Resources (NYSE:TECK) stock is down 7% to $65.08. Both names had ridden the same setup that lifted the group into Tuesday’s records, and both are now handing back a meaningful piece of that move.

The Global X Copper Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:COPX) is down 7% as the entire basket rerates in unison, with its three largest U.S.-listed constituents leading the decline. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is down 0.41%, so today’s damage is concentrated in copper names rather than the wider market.

Tariff Doubt Reverses the Scarcity Trade

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange is down 3.1% to $14,312 per metric ton after touching a record $14,875 earlier in the same session. The reversal followed reports that the White House hasn’t yet reached a decision on tariffs covering refined copper, with officials weighing how higher prices would feed through into manufacturing costs. Precious metals are lower too, with a firmer dollar and higher inflation-adjusted Treasury yields weighing on the broader metals complex.

Expectations of tariff action had been a central plank of the rally, pulling U.S.-bound metal out of global warehouses and building a scarcity premium into the physical price. Remove that expectation, and the premium unwinds inside minutes, which is why a policy update with no operational content just repriced the entire mining group. Copper had set fresh records earlier in the week and Freeport-McMoRan stock ran sharply higher on Tuesday alongside the metal, so much of what’s coming off today was put on this week.

Why Freeport Travels Furthest

Freeport-McMoRan is the largest U.S.-based copper producer and the most copper-levered name in the peer set, so it moves furthest in both directions when the metal reprices. That’s why the stock climbed sharply into Tuesday’s records and has given the most back this morning. The name still carries an operational overhang from the September 2025 mud-rush at Grasberg in Indonesia, with the flagship mine continuing to run below full capacity through the second half of 2026.

Southern Copper leans on a deep growth pipeline through Peruvian and Mexican projects including Tía María, Michiquillay, and Los Chancas, and Teck Resources is midway through a pending combination with Anglo American that targets $800 million in annual pre-tax synergies. All three, however, trade off the same copper price curve, so a same-day repricing of the metal drags them together regardless of company-specific stories.

The Global X Copper Miners ETF holds Freeport-McMoRan at 9.9% of net assets, Teck Resources at 9.9%, and Southern Copper at 9.7%, which is why the fund moves in near lockstep with its three U.S.-listed anchors today. That structure makes COPX a clean read on how the market is grading the entire copper theme rather than any one company’s quarter.

Even after this morning’s slide, Freeport-McMoRan stock is up 40% year to date (YTD). Southern Copper stock is up 42% YTD, and Teck Resources stock is up 36% YTD. That backdrop is why a single-session reversal in copper cuts this hard across the group without yet erasing the year’s trend.

What to Watch

The next signal is whether copper stabilizes at the LME afternoon fix or keeps bleeding into the U.S. cash session. A concrete tariff decision, even a delay, could reset the scarcity premium the group had been pricing in. Any headline touching refined-copper policy is now the swing variable for the whole sector.

Investors sizing their exposure to the copper-mining sector may want to keep an eye on whether Freeport-McMoRan stock reclaims its 50-day moving average. That line sits at $66.72 and has framed the summer trend, so a decisive break below would flip the technical setup for the name. The consensus analyst price target on Freeport-McMoRan sits at $72.05, close to where the stock is trading right now.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.