After a dismal two years, shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX) have been down so long that anything looks like up. From a two-year high of about $39, the shares dropped all the way to $3.52 earlier this year. Over the past two months, however, the stock has more than doubled to trade at an intraday high of around $10.50 early Friday.
The catalyst is asset sales. Freeport has made two sales in recent weeks that could add more than $1.26 billion to its liquidity. The first was a $1 billion sale of 13% of its stake in the Morenci copper mine in Arizona, and the second was the sale of an interest in its copper-gold Timok project in Serbia for a potential total of $265.2 million. Freeport’s goal is to cut at least $5 billion from its $19.8 billion debt total.
That’s a worthy goal, but the big overhang on the stock is ongoing negotiations with the government of Indonesia related to Freeport’s Grasberg mine. An agreement on this project could make or break the company.
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Here are some recent analyst reactions to Freeport:
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch resumed coverage with a Neutral rating and price target of $9.00. The firm said that it sees limited near-term upside catalysts for Freeport-McMoRan with breakeven 2016 cash flows and uncertainty in Indonesia.
- Bernberg started the stock with a Hold rating and a price target of $7.35.
- Scotia Capital Markets downgraded it from Outperform to Sector Perform.
- UBS lowered its rating from Buy to Neutral on Thursday.
The stock’s 52-week range is $3.52 to $23.97 and shares closed at $9.74 on Friday, up nearly 7% on the day. The consensus price target on the stock is $6.58, although recent changes may not yet be included in that consensus.
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