Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX) today announced that it has posted its press release outlining its revised operating plans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its first-quarter 2020 financial and operating results on the Investor Relations page of its website at https://investors.fcx.com/investors/news-releases.

Q1 2020 Freeport-McMoRan Inc Earnings Call

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of 27.27% and -5.90%, respectively, for the quarter ended March 2020. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?

The copper market will see a supply glut of 200,000 tonnes this year as the economic impact of coronavirus hits global demand for the metal, a Chilean industry group told Reuters. Diego Hernandez, president of Sonami, an association of mining companies with operations in top producer Chile, said both supply and demand would drop as the global economy falters. The association anticipates supply to fall by 3%, which, combined with a decline in scrap metal recovery, would leave a balance of 200,000 tonnes, Hernandez said.

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The optimism has spilled over from the biotech sector, too, to infect (in a good way) stocks as far away as the basic materials sectors of chemicals (Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) up 9.4% in 1:45 p.m. EDT trading), copper (Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) up 8.4%), and aluminum, too, with Alcoa (NYSE: AA) shares up an astounding 16.3%! After all, it was only four days ago that Alcoa CEO Roy Harvey told Bloomberg that Alcoa lacks "the clarity [or] the orders on the books, to signal that there is a definitive recovery coming."

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") affirmed Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s (FCX) Ba1 Corporate Family Rating (CFR), Ba1-PD Probability of Default rating, its Ba1 senior unsecured note ratings and the (P)Ba1 shelf rating for senior unsecured notes. The Baa2 rating for Freeport Minerals Corporation's guaranteed senior unsecured notes was also affirmed.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. said Friday it is revising the operating plans for 2020 that it made in January as it struggles with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its business. The copper and gold miner said it is cutting 2020 estimated operating costs by $1.3 billion, or about 18%, from the original plan, reducing planned capex spending by $800 million, or about 30%, cutting exploration and administrative costs by $100 million, or about 20%, and cutting estimated copper sales volumes by 400 million pounds, or about 15%. "The prudent steps we are taking to safeguard our business, address costs and capital spending, and preserve our strong liquidity position are necessary to protect long-term asset values in the current weak and uncertain economic environment and to position us to ramp up and resume normal operations safely and quickly as health and economic conditions improve," Chief Executive Richard Adkerson said in a statement. The revised plan prioritizes existing mine operations, the company said. Freeport is planning to furlough workers, reduce bonus programs, cut travel and other costs and reduce executive pay. The company had $5.1 billion in liquidity at end March and is not planning to pay a quarterly dividend during 2020. Freeport also reported earnings for the first quarter, showing a net loss of $491 million, or 34 cents a share, after earnings of $31 million, or 2 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Its adjusted per-share loss came to 18 cents, matching the FactSet consensus. Revenue fell to $2.798 billion from $3.792 billion, below the $2.896 billion FactSet consensus. Shares rose 1.8% premarket but are down 40% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 has fallen 13%.

Companies In The News Are: VZ, AXP, FCX, SNY.

Impacts of weaker copper prices are expected to get reflected in Freeport's (FCX) first-quarter results.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc's Indonesian unit said it will operate the giant Grasberg mine with a "skeletal team" after a rise in coronavirus infections in the area, including at the mine workers' living quarters, and three deaths. The move is aimed at ensuring workers at the world's biggest gold mine and second-biggest copper mine can socially distance effectively and avoid any further spread of the virus, which has infected 17,514 and killed 1,148 in Indonesia, a Freeport Indonesia spokesman said. Pratama declined to say how many workers at the mine, which normally employs about 25,000 people, would be kept on to run the operation.

STOCKSTOWATCHTODAY BLOG Equity markets have been relatively calm for the past couple of weeks. It’s been a nice respite for weary investors. But now is the time, it seems, for commodity markets to go haywire.

Freeport-McMoRan posted a narrower-than-expected loss and is bolstering its balance sheet, including suspending dividends.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc is cutting molybdenum production at a key Colorado mine by half and "plans to reassess" operations at a New Mexico copper mine that has been temporarily shuttered due to COVID-19, a spokeswoman said. The steps come after Phoenix-based Freeport, the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, said last month it would cut $1.3 billion from its budget as prices for the red metal plunged due to the global spread of the novel coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19. Freeport plans to cut output by 50 percent at its Climax molybdenum mine, spokeswoman Linda Hayes said in an emailed statement late Monday.

Lower copper prices and higher unit cash costs hurt Freeport's (FCX) Q1 margins.

We hate to say this but, we told you so. On February 27th we published an article with the title Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW and predicted a US recession when the S&P 500 Index was trading at the 3150 level. We also told you to short the market and buy […]

Copper producer Freeport-McMoRan had a good month, but the year is still young and painful. Here's the bigger picture.

Mining minister Baldo Prokurica, in an interview with Emol TV, credited both public and private measures aimed at protecting workers with the industry´s resilience even as the virus has ravaged other parts of Chile´s economy. "One realizes that Chile has been one of the countries that will be least hit by this pandemic," Prokurica told the web news broadcast. Prokurica said official statistics from Chile state copper agency Cochilco estimate a total reduction in output of about 63,300 tonnes, or approximately 1% of the country´s annual production.

PT Freeport Indonesia, operator of the world's second-biggest copper mine, is to conduct "extensive testing" among its employees after coronavirus cases in the area where the mine operates topped 100. COVID-19 infections in Mimika Regency, where Freeport's gold and copper Grasberg mine is located on Papua island, reached 112 cases as of Sunday. "To help keep its over 25,000 employee and contractor workforce safe, PT Freeport Indonesia's medical providers are doing extensive testing," the company said in the statement.