The price of copper soared to its best day in history Tuesday after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would impose a 50% tariff on imports of the metal. Copper mining stocks were mixed.
Trump made the announcement during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. An official action on tariffs, he added, would be announced later Tuesday. Trump also said tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors were coming. While tariffs had been imposed earlier on steel and aluminum, copper had been spared up to now.
Comex copper for July delivery jumped 66.05 cents per pound, or 13%, to close at $5.645. That's a record high and the biggest single-day gain ever for copper, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The metal is up 41.6% year to date and up 23.3% over the past 52 weeks.
In after-hours trading, the metal traded at $5.48 per pound, according to FactSet.
United States Copper Index Fund, an ETF that tracks Comex copper futures, broke out above the 33.11 buy point of a 15-week chart pattern. The buy range goes to 34.77, per IBD trading rules. Volume was the highest since at least Jan. 18, 2023, according to IBD MarketSurge.
Copper Mining Stocks Mixed
Among copper mining stocks, Freeport-McMoRan, one of the largest copper producers in the world, saw shares jump 3.5% in late trading. At one point Tuesday, the stock reached the highest level since November. The stock remains 15% below a new high.
Volume was running 350% above the stock's 50-day average.
Phoenix-based Freeport has seven open-pit copper mines in Arizona and New Mexico. It also has mines in Peru, Chile and Indonesia. Of an estimated 4 billion pounds of copper it produced this year, 1.3 billion was from U.S. mines, 1.1 billion from South America and 1.6 billion from Indonesia, according to the company's quarterly SEC filing.
Southern Copper rose as much as 4.7% but reversed modestly lower in afternoon trading. The stock is 21% below a prior high, but trading above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Volume was running five times more than average.
The company, also based in Phoenix, has mines in Mexico and Peru. It is majority-owned as a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico.
In Southern Copper's April earnings call with analysts, CFO Raul Jacob Ruisanchez said if the U.S. were to impose tariffs, the company would "reassign some of the production that we have to some other markets."
