Southern Copper Corporation enters its May 4 Q1 2026 earnings release in a rare position: the stock has rallied 8% in a month to close at $171.69, yet the Street's consensus price target sits well below the current price across the bearish analyst cluster — a disconnect that makes the upcoming print the first real test of whether recent momentum is justified.
The analyst picture is strikingly negative for a stock trading near $172. JPMorgan holds an Underweight with a $127 target, Morgan Stanley holds Underweight at $160, and UBS maintains Sell with a $140 target. Even Bank of America, which downgraded to Underperform in late February, raised its target only to $175 — barely above the current price. Scotiabank's most recent move, lifting its Sector Underperform target to $133 just last week, was against the current tape too. Only Wells Fargo, at Equal-Weight with a $186 target, sees meaningful upside. The consistent message from the Street is that SCCO is expensive: the stock trades at a PE above 24x and EV/EBITDA near 14x, with a price-to-book of 10.3x. Bears argue the valuation leaves little room for a commodity price stumble.
The fundamental picture is harder to dismiss, and that is where bulls push back. Last quarter's revenue grew 36% year-over-year to $4.25 billion. EBITDA margins ran at nearly 64%. Return on equity came in at 55%. EPS momentum ranks in the 86th percentile over the past 30 days and the 84th percentile over 90 days — meaning the earnings revision trend has been strongly positive heading in. The ORTEX short score of 64.8 reflects real bearish conviction in the market, but it has edged lower over the past week as short interest itself fell 5.4% over the same period to just 1.4% of the free float. This is not a heavily shorted stock by any measure.
Lending conditions confirm the bear case is not being pressed aggressively. The cost to borrow has risen 24% over the week to 0.56% — noticeable, but still near the floor in absolute terms. Borrow availability remains ample, consistent with a market where shorts are present but not crowding in. Options positioning is roughly neutral: the put/call ratio of 1.05 runs only slightly above its 20-day average of 1.01, well within one standard deviation, suggesting no particular rush for downside protection. Nearest peer FCX fell 6% on the week alongside SCCO's 5.8% pullback, reflecting broad sector pressure rather than a SCCO-specific concern. The past two prints have both produced negative one-day reactions of 4-5%, with a further drift lower in the following week — a pattern the May 4 release will either break or extend. The key question is whether margins can hold at last quarter's exceptional levels in a more uncertain copper price environment, and whether EPS delivery can close the gap between momentum and the Street's stubborn scepticism.
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