Copper miners are having an ugly session. Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) is down about 7.3% to $70.68, as reported by StockAnalysis; 24/7 Wall St put it at roughly −8% to $70.43 intraday. Southern Copper fell ~7% to $195.66, Teck Resources ~7% to $65.08, and the Global X Copper Miners ETF dropped ~7% too. The whole complex went down together, which tells you this wasn't a company problem.

What happened

Reuters reported that the White House plan to put tariffs on refined copper has stalled. The plan on the table: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was asked to recommend a 15% tariff starting 1 January 2027, rising to 30% in 2028, covering refined copper — cathode and concentrate from mine sites. His recommendation was due by 30 June 2026. There's still no final call. A White House official told Reuters the administration "continues to evaluate all options to reshore copper and other critical manufacturing back to the United States."

The metal reacted first. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell 3.1% to $14,312 a tonne — after touching a record $14,875 earlier in the same session, per 24/7 Wall St. Trading Economics has COMEX copper down 4.82% to $6.48 a pound, against an August record of $6.83.

Why it moved — the bit the headline skips

This rally was never a demand story. It was a logistics story. When traders expect an import tariff, they rush metal into US warehouses before the tariff lands, so they can sell it tariff-free later. That pulled copper out of global warehouses and built a scarcity premium into the physical price — the metal was expensive because of where it was sitting, not because factories suddenly needed more of it. Take the tariff away and the reason to hoard it in Ohio instead of Shanghai disappears with it.

Now, why did the stock fall roughly twice as hard as the metal? Because miner earnings are geared. Freeport's own management sensitivity, cited by 24/7 Wall St, is that every 10-cent move in copper is worth about $390 million of EBITDA — they model roughly $13bn of annual EBITDA at $5 copper versus $20bn at $7. Run today's 33-cent COMEX drop through that and you get about $1.3bn of annual EBITDA repriced in one session. A 5% move in the metal is never a 5% move in the miner.

The business — this isn't a pure copper bet

• Freeport mines copper, gold and molybdenum, employing around 29,000 people. 2025 revenue was $25.92bn.
• Assets sit in Arizona and New Mexico (Morenci, Bagdad), Grasberg in Indonesia, and South America.
• Grasberg matters most right now. After a September 2025 mud rush, block cave output doubled in Q2 2026, and management guides the district to 65% of full capacity in H2 2026, 80% by mid-2027 and full capacity by end-2027.
• Volumes are supposed to climb regardless of price: H2 2026 copper sales over 20% above H1, and 2027 more than 20% above 2026.

Is it expensive?

Freeport trades at a market cap of about $101.5bn on a trailing P/E near 37 (EPS $2.04) and a forward P/E of roughly 22, per StockAnalysis. A trailing 37 is rich for a cyclical miner in a good year. The gap between 37 and 22 is doing a lot of work — it exists only because the market believes the Grasberg ramp and the volume guidance above land on schedule. If that slips, the forward multiple quietly becomes a 30.

Compare with the obvious alternative: Southern Copper, at $165.7bn market cap, trades on a trailing P/E of ~31.5 and a forward P/E of ~29, with a punchy price/book of 14.25. So Southern Copper looks cheaper on today's earnings but pricier on next year's — it has no equivalent volume ramp to grow into. Neither one is a bargain after a year in which FCX is still up ~40% and SCCO ~42%. No target, no call — just the arithmetic.

Who it touches

• India hasn't voted on this yet. The NSE closed at 15:30 IST, hours before the Reuters story moved US copper. So Indian copper names are pricing yesterday's copper, not today's.
• Hurt by cheaper copper: Hindustan Copper, the only listed Indian pure-play miner, whose realisations track LME; and Hindalco, which runs Birla Copper, India's largest custom smelter, alongside its aluminium and Novelis business.
• Helped by cheaper copper: the wire and cable makers — Polycab, KEI Industries, Finolex Cables — where copper is the single largest raw material line. Every rupee off the input is gross-margin relief they don't have to ask customers for.
• US: Southern Copper, Teck and the COPX ETF all moved with Freeport, so index and ETF holders took the hit whether they picked a copper stock or not.

The one thing that flips it

Reuters said stalled, not cancelled. The recommendation for a 15% tariff still sits with the administration, and the official line is that all options remain open. If Washington signs it, the scarcity premium rebuilds about as fast as it just came out — the same trade, in reverse. The real reason it's stuck is politics, not economics: with November midterms coming, the administration is under pressure to show its policies lower costs, and a copper tariff raises the price of wiring a house, a car and a data centre.

As of 11:20 a.m. ET / 8:50 p.m. IST, 10 September 2026. Figures as reported by the sources cited, not MarketChacha's own market data. Sources: Reuters via Investing.com, 24/7 Wall St, Trading Economics, StockAnalysis (FCX), StockAnalysis (SCCO). For discussion and education only — not investment advice. Verify before acting.