Freeport-McMoRan has emerged from a difficult twelve months as one of the cleanest ways for an equity investor to participate in a structural copper bull market. In the second quarter of 2026, the company reported revenue of $7.0 billion, operating income of $2.0 billion, and net income attributable to common stockholders of $984 million ($0.68 per diluted share), with copper, gold and molybdenum prices all moving sharply higher year over year. The U.S. copper mines more than doubled their operating income in the first half versus the prior year, generating a $2.51 per pound gross profit on copper (the by-product measure, a non-GAAP figure that nets molybdenum and gold credits against costs) compared with $1.11 in the same period of 2025. The Indonesian operations are still in the early stages of a multi-quarter recovery from the September 2025 mud rush incident at the Grasberg Block Cave underground mine, but management's $8.3 billion consolidated operating cash flow guidance for the full year suggests the temporary disruption is being absorbed, not compounded.
The investment debate is no longer whether copper prices can stay elevated; they have stayed elevated. The London Metal Exchange (LME) copper price closed at an all-time high of $6.56 per pound on August 6, 2026, only days after the period end, while the New York Commodity Exchange (COMEX) copper price hit $6.70 per pound on August 5, 2026. The more interesting question is how much of that price is now in the shares, which trade near $78.65 against a 52-week range of $35.15 to $80.24, and how quickly Freeport can rebuild Indonesian volumes back toward pre-incident levels.
The U.S. copper mines are the engine that has done the heavy lifting during the Indonesian disruption. Operating income from the U.S. copper mines more than doubled in the first half of 2026 versus the prior year, with the gross profit per pound of copper (the by-product measure) rising to $2.51 from $1.11. That improvement reflects both higher realized prices, which were up 35% for copper and 26% for molybdenum, and a structurally lower tax burden on U.S. production. With the stock priced for continued execution, the bull case rests on production recovery, the Bagdad expansion, the leaching technology initiatives, and a price deck that does not retreat, while the bear case rests on Indonesia slipping, costs rising, and tariffs or a global slowdown taking the wind out of the copper tape.