What the data actually shows

Across the nine-name cohort (FCX, SCCO, TECK, HBM, ERO, RIO, BHP, AA, USAR), trend bands as of 2026-07-29 show only TECK and BHP in mildly bullish territory; FCX, HBM, RIO, SCCO and USAR have all rolled into mildly bearish over the past two to three weeks, and AA and ERO sit in strongly bearish. Thirty-day returns are mixed-to-negative rather than uniformly resilient: AA -19.8%, USAR -37.9%, HBM -7.2%, FCX -2.6%, ERO -2.6%, RIO -0.7%, TECK -1.2%, against modest gains for BHP (+1.7%) and SCCO (+4.2%). The 180-day picture is similarly bifurcated — BHP +20.9% and TECK +6.9% versus AA -24.5%, ERO -24.6% and USAR -41.7% — undercutting any notion of a cohort-wide continued-bull streak. This looks like a broad, fairly synchronized de-rating, not a case of durable base-metal resilience standing apart from one broken rare-earth name.

Physical copper is holding up better than copper equities

The fundamental copper story retains real teeth. Treatment-and-refining charges have collapsed toward zero — Antofagasta agreed a $0/tonne TC/RC deal with a Chinese smelter for 2026, down from $21.25/t — a scarcity signal even if partly a function of Chinese smelting overcapacity. Mine-supply guidance has been cut hard: Freeport-McMoRan trimmed 2026 copper sales guidance roughly 300 million pounds after Grasberg force majeure, and Ivanhoe cut Kamoa-Kakula 2026-27 guidance following a seismic event. Teck's Q2 beat came with management explicitly citing AI/datacenter infrastructure as an emerging incremental demand source for copper. Yet copper miners as a group (COPX) traded 23% below 2026 highs even as futures held near records, with Comex copper still up over 12% year-to-date and only 5% off its June peak — equities have sold off far harder than the metal. That gap traces partly to record combined LME+SHFE+COMEX inventories, the highest since 2003, reigniting China-demand doubts, though a chunk of that COMEX build reflects tariff-hedging stockpiles rather than spot-available metal, and war jitters plus China demand fears have overshadowed earnings beats at Teck and Freeport.

Aluminum and rare earths tell separate stories

Alcoa shows the clearest decoupling: even with a record $2,182/tonne Midwest Premium cited as a profit driver, AA equity fell 19.8% in 30 days into strongly bearish — a tariff-arbitrage trade unwinding. USAR's collapse, meanwhile, traces to dilution from a 93.8-million-share resale registration, Russell index removal and an MP Materials lawsuit — idiosyncratic, not a base-metals read-through. Incentive-price analysis still suggests greenfield copper supply needs prices above current spot, meaning the physical deficit case survives even though the equity cohort itself is broadly de-rating on macro overhang rather than acting as the durable buildout trade the label implies.