The Dividend Daily

Copper producer Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) on Thursday received a big upgrade from analysts at Deutsche Bank.

The firm boosted its rating on FCX from “Hold” to “Buy” and lifted its price target to $40. That new target suggests an 18% upside to the stock’s Wednesday closing price of $33.95.

A Deutsche Bank analyst commented, “Freeport’s $20bn move into energy was a shock (FCX -20% in 2 days) due to unexpectedness, high leverage, unclear industrial rationale, premiums paid and potential conflicts of interest but we believe investors will eventually move past ‘anger’ and to ‘acceptance’ as we assume the deal will go through and the share price decline over-penalizes the stock. Our downgrade to Hold on December 5th was driven by the aforementioned factors, however, based on a better understanding of deal mechanics and implied resource upside, we now believe upside is possible and re-instate our former Buy while retaining our $40/share PT (now based on 9x revised 2014E EPS).”

Freeport-McMoRan shares rose 33 cents, or +1%, in premarket trading Thursday.

The Bottom Line
Shares of Freeport McMoran (FCX) have a 3.68% dividend yield, based on last night’s closing stock price of $33.95. The stock has technical support in the $30-$32 price area. If the shares can firm up, we see overhead resistance around the $36-$39 price levels.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.