FM enters the week of April 27 in the grip of a double blow: a widening Q1 net loss reported Tuesday colliding with a broad copper-sector rout that has pushed the stock down 15% in five sessions.
The earnings print set the tone. First Quantum reported a US$196 million net loss for Q1 2026, wider than the US$23 million loss a year earlier, as higher costs overwhelmed improved revenue. The stock fell 9.6% on the day of the release — the sharpest single-day move in the recent history captured in the data. The close on April 29 was CAD 32.46, roughly flat with analyst consensus at CAD 32.07, meaning the Street's average target has nearly closed on the price. Stifel Canada maintained its Buy with a CAD $52 target post-results, keeping it an outlier on the optimistic end of the range. The sell-off leaves FM down 6.8% year-to-date, a sharp reversal after a 3.6% recovery over the prior month.
Short positioning tells a notably unexcited story, and that contrast is worth naming. Short interest is just 1.1% of the free float — barely above the threshold where it warrants attention at all. Shorts actually trimmed over the past month, with SI down roughly 9.8% over 30 days and a further 9.8% over the past week, as roughly one million shares left short books around April 20-21. At that level, there is no crowding signal here. The lending market confirms the picture: availability is ample, with the 52-week utilization peak at just 1.89% of the pool. Cost to borrow is cheap at 1.36% annualised, though it did jump 17% in the past week — a move worth noting even if the absolute level remains trivial. The borrow market is loose. Any selling this week was driven by fundamental reassessment, not short pressure.
The forward fundamental picture is more constructive than the recent results suggest. EPS momentum ranks in the 81st percentile on a 90-day basis, and the 12-month forward EPS year-on-year increase ranks in the 97th percentile — an unusually strong signal that consensus estimates for the year ahead have been moving up even as the current quarter disappointed. Analyst recommendation positioning ranks in the 93rd percentile relative to ORTEX's universe, reflecting that the Street remains predominantly bullish. The analyst return potential implied by consensus is roughly 28% from current levels, though that gap has narrowed sharply as the stock fell toward the mean target. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed from around 9.1x a month ago to 8.4x now — cheaper, but still above the lows seen during the April 6 tariff-shock day when cost to borrow briefly spiked to 2.9%.
The sell-off was not an FM-specific event. Every close copper peer moved down hard on Tuesday. LUN dropped 6.9% on the day and 8.2% on the week. SCCO fell 4.3% on the day and 7.1% on the week. FCX shed 3.9% on the day and nearly 14% on the week — actually worse than FM on a five-day basis. HBM and NGEX were also down 4-6% on the day. The pattern across the group suggests a macro copper repricing rather than company-specific fallout from the Q1 print, with FM underperforming on the day of results but broadly in line with the sector over the week.
Institutional ownership adds an important backstop note. Jiangxi Copper holds 18.6% of shares and has not moved. Capital Research and FMR together hold a further 22.7%, with FMR adding 6.6 million shares in its most recent filing. BlackRock added 2.9 million shares and Mirae Asset added 3.6 million. The largest holders are not retreating. What to watch from here is whether the Q2 earnings call on May 7 — the next confirmed event — brings any updated production or cost guidance that shifts consensus back toward Stifel's more bullish CAD $52 anchor.
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