ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance Buys Freeport-McMoRan Stock

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Freeport-McMoRan stock has slid this year, and director Ryan Lance has bought a large block of shares of the copper, gold, and molybdenum miner.

Freeport-McMoRan

(ticker: FCX) stock has lost nearly a third of its value in 2022. Copper prices have been tumbling, hurting the company’s top and bottom lines. The second-quarter report in July missed expectations.

Lance paid $988,300 on Aug. 29 for 31,000 Freeport-McMoRan shares, an average price of $31.88 each, according to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He made the purchases through a family trust that now owns 32,132 of the shares. Lance also holds 7,000 Freeport-McMoRan shares in a personal account, and another 290 shares through other trusts.

Lance is the chairman and CEO of energy explorer and producer

ConocoPhillips

(COP), which declined to make him available for comment. He has been a Freeport-McMoRan director since November 2021.

This is his first open-market purchase of the stock this year. He last bought shares in November 2021 when he paid $5,000 through trusts for a total of 130 of them, at an average price of $38.72.

After Freeport-McMoRan reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, Credit Suisse analyst Curt Woodworth lowered his price target to $34 from $38, and kept a Neutral rating. “We expect earnings to trough in the third quarter,” Woodworth wrote in a research report.

Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.

Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.