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Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Freeport-McMoRan (FCX - Free Report) closed at $50.09, marking a -0.36% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.23%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.97%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 0.44%.

Heading into today, shares of the mining company had gained 7.07% over the past month, lagging the Basic Materials sector's gain of 9.15% and outpacing the S&P 500's gain of 4.69% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Freeport-McMoRan as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect Freeport-McMoRan to post earnings of $0.84 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 64.71%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $6.22 billion, up 28.29% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $3.81 per share and revenue of $26.37 billion, which would represent changes of +21.73% and +15.41%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for Freeport-McMoRan. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 3.14% higher within the past month. Freeport-McMoRan is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Freeport-McMoRan is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 13.2. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 9.94.

Investors should also note that FCX has a PEG ratio of 0.45 right now. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Mining - Non Ferrous was holding an average PEG ratio of 0.45 at yesterday's closing price.

The Mining - Non Ferrous industry is part of the Basic Materials sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 212, putting it in the bottom 17% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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