Make Your FCX Shares Pay You 15% While You Hold Them

Get paid a real income now on your Freeport-McMoRan shares, an income you keep no matter what, in exchange for capping your gains above a higher price.

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) shareholders have been on a wild ride. The stock trades around $60.53 and has handily outperformed the S&P 500 over the past year, but it’s also sitting about 16% below its 52-week high after the company trimmed production forecasts for its massive Grasberg mine. For owners wondering if the best of the run is over for now, there is a way to get paid a significant income stream for your patience, an income you collect today and keep no matter what happens next.

14.5% annualized income on FCX shares you already own, with 24% of upside room, by selling a covered call.

• You own (or buy) 100 shares of FCX near today’s price of $60.53.
• Sell one call option on FCX expiring 6/17/2027, with a strike price of $75, about 24% above today.
• Collect roughly $823 in premium up front per contract (each contract covers 100 shares), which you keep no matter what the stock does.
• That premium is about 14.5% annualized on the $6,053 of stock, income you earn just for holding.
• If FCX finishes above $75, your shares are called away at $75. Counting the premium, your total return works out to about 40% annualized, but you give up any gains above the strike.

Two Outcomes, You Keep The Income Either Way

If FCX finishes below $75 on 6/17/2027, the call expires worthless, and you keep the full $823 premium and all your shares. That is about 14% over 343 days, income earned just for holding, and you are free to sell another call.

If FCX finishes above $75, your 100 shares are called away at $75. You still keep the $823 premium, and counting it your total gain works out to about 37%, a healthy exit. The cost of the trade is that any gain above $75 is no longer yours. And if the stock instead falls, you keep the premium but still ride the shares down, cushioned only slightly.

So the whole trade comes down to one thing: how much of that upside are you really likely to give up, and would you be content to sell at that higher price?

Would You Be Happy To Sell FCX Higher?

So, what’s the catch? Selling this call means you agree to sell your shares at a higher price, capping your potential gains if the stock really takes off. The bull case for that happening is straightforward: the world needs more copper. Management sees a new area of growth around copper, driven by the growing demand for electricity, a theme that recently pushed copper prices to an all-time high. If that powerful structural demand story overwhelms any near-term hiccups, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

On the other hand, those hiccups are real. The slower-than-expected ramp-up at the Grasberg mine forced the company to cut its five-year copper production forecast by an approximate 9%. At the same time, costs are climbing, with a sharp rise in diesel prices alone creating what management estimates is an “approximate $500 million cost increase on an annualized basis.” That combination of lower production and higher costs could easily keep a lid on the stock’s performance for a while, making the immediate income from selling the call a very smart trade-off.

Ultimately, the decision comes down to your view on that operational execution. The key thing to watch is the progress at Grasberg. Management’s revised plan now targets a rate of approximately 60,000 tonnes per day in the second half of 2026. Seeing them hit that new, lower bar would be the first sign that the problems are contained, while any further slips would suggest the income-now strategy was the right call.

Find The Covered-Call Income On Your Holdings

You may not own FCX, but you almost certainly own something that could be paying you. Our Covered Call Finder lets you type in a stock, or a few, and instantly see the income a covered call could generate on each, then dial the strike up or down with a slider to balance more income against more upside. It is the quickest way to see what the names in your own portfolio could pay.

Pair The Premium With Real Diversification

Selling calls on a stock you own is a sensible way to manufacture income. It is still, by design, a concentrated position, and even owning a whole sector only trades single-name risk for single-theme risk. Real diversification means spreading across sectors, so one industry stumbling does not define your result.

The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio handles that: about 30 quality, cash-generative companies across sectors, chosen on the full weight of their fundamentals rather than one premium-rich setup, then sized and rebalanced with care. The payoff is a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines all major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Keep the income from trades like this, without pinning your future to any single name or theme.