Thursday, January 20, 2011

Freeport (NYSE:FCX) Reports Great Quarter, Weak Guidance

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (NYSE:FCX) far exceeded earnings expectations from analysts for their latest quarters, but the shares of the company fell after giving weak guidance for full year 2011.

Earnings for the fourth quarter came in at $3.25 a share, 37 cents above the $2.88 a share analysts estimated.

Revenue also soared to $5.6 billion, a major increase over the $4.6 billion of revenue generated in the last quarter. the market had been looking for $5.47 billion.

Projections for copper and gold sales for 2011 is what did the company in, as they dropped their copper sales estimate from 3.9 billion to 3.8 billion pounds, and their gold sales estimate from 1.5 million to 1.4 million ounces.

Freeport was trading at $109.60, falling $5.56, or 4.83 percent, as of 10:49 AM EST.

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