Aluminium, steel, copper, gold and other industrial metals and mining.
| Symbol | Company | Industry | Price | 1‑day | 1‑month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RIO | Rio Tinto Group | Other Industrial Metals & Mining | $101.91 | +0.80% | +12.56% |
| NEM | Newmont | Gold | $117.26 | +3.79% | +23.06% |
| FCX | Freeport-McMoRan | Copper | $70.51 | +1.28% | +14.89% |
| VALE | Vale | Other Industrial Metals & Mining | $14.89 | +1.22% | +2.97% |
| NUE | Nucor | Steel | $274.61 | +0.73% | +20.78% |
| STLD | Steel Dynamics | Steel | $268.60 | +2.34% | +17.59% |
| AA | Alcoa | Aluminum | $51.63 | +2.91% | +6.06% |
| CLF | Cleveland-Cliffs | Steel | $12.49 | +1.88% | +32.87% |
Basic Materials covers the producers of raw industrial inputs — aluminium, steel, copper, gold and other mined metals. Like energy, these are price takers selling an undifferentiated commodity, so brand, marketing and product strategy carry almost no weight and the competitive question reduces to cost.
Position on the industry cost curve is what separates these companies. A producer in the lowest cost quartile stays profitable through the part of the cycle that forces higher-cost capacity to idle, and it is that survivability rather than peak-cycle earnings that distinguishes the assets. Precious metals miners sit slightly apart: their output price responds to real interest rates and currency moves rather than to industrial demand, so gold producers frequently move opposite to the rest of the sector.
Set in global markets and unaffected by any single producer, yet responsible for most of the variation in revenue.
The cash cost of producing a tonne relative to competitors determines who keeps operating when prices fall.
New mines and smelters take years to build, so supply responds to price with a long lag and routinely arrives after the shortage that justified it has passed.
China consumes a dominant share of several of these metals, and tariffs and quotas can reprice regional markets independently of global supply and demand.
As with energy, a fundamental screen built on margins and returns measures where the commodity cycle was during the reporting period as much as it measures the company. Compare producers against each other at the same point in the cycle rather than against companies in other sectors.
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