Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX)

Copper markets have had a great move this year. This has some gold, but mostly copper and a lot of oil. The balance sheet got very stretched. They've done a great job of paying down debt. Looking in better shape than they have for a long time. Thinks there is still upside to go.

It is a consolidating stock since mid-2015. There is technical resistance about $16. It keeps repeating this. If it could break this it would be quite bullish. Until then it is moving sideways.

When times are good, this company makes tons of money. Then, unfortunately, they often make a lot of lousy acquisitions and/or get into other businesses. This company eventually had to eliminate the dividend because they were paying out too much. These are stocks that you “rent” not “own”.

(A Top Pick Feb 16/16. Up 150.55%.) About a year ago, you couldn’t give resource stocks away. This was into copper and oil and it had a really bad balance sheet. Copper turned around and oil did better. He recently sold his position. He is not as bullish on copper and oil now.

About a year ago, he was a big fan of this. This is a stock that was trying to find its own way. It didn’t know what it wanted to be. Right now this is a stock that you need to own. It looks great.

This would only be for speculators. Copper prices have been falling because demand out of China isn’t as great as it was deemed to be 2 weeks ago. They are a single B credit, which has them in low junk status, because of their debt and low, if not negative, cash flows.

Short or Buy? This has gone from mid-$50 to below $10. The recent rally to $12.57 may seem impressive, but looking at a 5-year chart, this is still in a major downtrend. Commodities have just finished a major cycle, and going by past history, it takes 3, 5, or even 7 years for big commodity cycles to recover and go back up. He would not hold this one.

This had a massive write off. In Canada, material stocks have not written off their balance sheets, and he doesn’t know why. His model price is $10.54, but he would wait for a pullback to around $4.

This is a materials company, mostly in copper and some in gold. The issue he has is its debt, and how much of an issue that puts them in if we start to see some failure on the commodity side.

This is a basket case and has been a disaster. They bought $20 billion of oil/gas assets right at the peak of the market. They levered up the balance sheet and the stock dropped 90% over a period of basically 4 years. Recently got re-permitted in Indonesia. Just sold off some of their copper assets. He could see this trading up around $10-$12 without much difficulty.

They have diversified out of just copper. He does not know where the bottom is for this stock.

He does not think the dividend is safe. It comes down to what you think is going to happen in China. He feels they will continue to slow.

It is amazing how this has fallen. The one lesson you are constantly taught in this business is that you have to think outside of the box. This is heavily leveraged to the commodity complex, particularly copper and gold. It is a fairly leveraged company, and for that reason free cash just disappears when commodity prices fall. He would prefer Rio Tinto (RIO-N) if he were to go into this area. It has a better profile from a balance sheet standpoint.

Copper prices have been very weak. Japan is the driver. He does not see an opportunity at the present time.

Found it very strange when they took the company, primarily a copper/gold producer, and decided to bet on oil which was at $110 a barrel. They levered up the company considerably from a position of no debt. He questions their judgment in the last couple of years. Feels the dividend is at risk and they still have a lot of debt.