[Prescious Metal] Copper Stocks

Precious Copper About a month ago we introduced companies involved in mining operation of a appreciating previous metal - gold. As prices of many precious metals are on the rise, it may be worth while to look at another metal on the rise - copper. After a brief look, we have noticed that most of the copper mining companies have benefited from the soaring copper price with annual stock price gain from 20% to 400%. As many of these copper mining companies are upgraded by analysts, this maybe worth while to take a look and see if you should have one of them in your portfolio.

Here are the copper mining companies:

• Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. (FCX): the New Orleans, Louisiana based mining company explores copper, gold and silver in properties in Indonesia. The rising copper price has helped the earning as the copper company's revenue almost doubled to 4.2 billion in 2005 compared to $2.4 billion in the previous year. For the most recent quarter, the company earned record net income of $251 million for the first quarter of 2006, almost doubled from $130 million in the same quarter of previous year. The stock for the past 52 weeks has gone up from $35.34 per share in the beginning of last June to $56.74 of June this year, up 60% in one year.
• Peru Copper Inc. (CUP): the Vancouver, Canada based company involves in copper mining operation in Peru. For the first quarter of 2006 the company reported a net loss of $1.0 million compared to net loss of $0.7 million of the same quarter in the previous year. Recently the company entered into an agreement for the option to acquire interest in a mining project which is estimated to have annual production rate of 272,788 tones of copper. For the past 52 weeks the stock has soared 400% from $1.1 in the beginning of last June to $5.29 on Friday of June 2, 2006.
• Phelps Dodge Corp. (PD): the Phoenix, Arizona based copper mining company is the world's second largest copper producer with copper mining production in United States and South America. The company has 17.7 billion in market cap with revenue of 8.63 billion and net income of $1.55 billion. For the past 52 weeks the stock has surged 100% from $86.85 last June to $86.94 on Friday of June 2, 2006, as the stock already went through a 2 for 1 split in March of 2006.
• Regalito Copper Corp. (RLO): the Vancouver, Canada based company is still in development stage and owns interests in copper property in Chile. The company has yet to generate any revenue and had a net loss of $3 million in 2005. The stock has gained about 20% for the past 52 weeks from $4.85 last June to $5.93 on Friday of June 2, 2006.
• Southern Copper Corp. (PCU): the Phoenix, Arizona based company involves in mining operation of copper, molybdenum, zinc, silver, gold and lead. the company operates copper mines in Peru and Mexico. As of 2005 the copper mining company produced 1,521 million pounds of copper. The revenue has more than doubled to $4 billion in 2005 compared to $1.7 billion in 2004. For the past 52 weeks the stock has gained 87% from $46.52 in June of 2005 to $86.96 on Friday of June 2, 2006.