| Account | Shares | Price | Value | % of acct | Cost/sh | Gain $ | Gain % | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 401K | 218 | $91.25 | $19,892 | 0.81% | $74.25 | $3,705 | +22.9% | — |
| HSA | 3 | $89.90 | $270 | 0.25% | $75.50 | $43 | +19.1% | — |
| Total | 221 | $20,162 | 0.45% | $3,748 | +22.8% | — |
In short: Second trim, core kept — "We are recommending trimming COPX again at current levels," "reducing by another 25% to 33%," while "the long-term structural thesis on copper remains intact and we are not exiting the position." Highlighted Aug-25-2025 at $46.67, first trim May-15-2026; now ~$90 in the text and $94.38 in the data box (+92–102%), 52-week range $51.52–$99.99, AUM ~$22.7B, 0.65% expense ratio, ~2.02% yield, P/E 16.09x. "The thesis… was correct" (AI data centers, electrification, reshoring; a decade-long mine lead time; "the structural deficit is real"), plus Hormuz-driven grid-resiliency spending — but "what has changed, in a big way, is the price": outflows of $96M (5 days), $331M (1 month), $306M (3 months) read as "institutional money… selling into the strength." Bear risks listed: US-China tariffs, a Hormuz ceasefire, dollar strength, China's property overhang (China "consumes over 50%" of world copper). Upside trigger: "a breakout above $99." Postscript: fell ~7% the day after writing.
COPX is a fund that owns a basket of copper-mining companies, so it rises and falls with the copper price and with how much investors want to own miners. Haymaker recommended it a year ago at about $47, sold part of it in May, and it is now around $90 — nearly double.
The reasons to own copper haven't changed. Data centres, electric cars, power grids and new US factories all need a lot of copper wire, and new mines take about ten years to build, so supply is struggling to keep up. The Strait of Hormuz crisis added another reason: countries want more home-grown energy, and a stronger electric grid means even more copper.
What changed is the price. After a double in a year, the upside is smaller and the downside bigger. Haymaker also notes that professional money has been pulling out of the fund — about $331 million in a month — while prices kept rising, which often happens near a peak. So the advice is to sell another quarter to a third of what you still hold, bank some profit, and keep the rest in case the price breaks above $99. The day after it was written, the fund fell about 7%.
In short: He owns a little copper and shorts some, and the reason is multiples plus AI capex. "We own a little bit of copper stock, but we also short some copper stocks. And if you look at the multiple, copper stocks, they're much higher than gold stocks on a price to NAV or on a price to cash flow or PE." The catalyst is the same capex peak that drives the semis short — the host's framing that "if you like the AI trade, buy copper, buy hard assets" is exactly what he turns against the sector: "copper stocks are likely to go down once we go down the other side of the mountain and capex starts to go down. And it could be in 27, maybe it's in 28. That's a real debate. In my mind it's not if." He notes the same-day evidence that copper now trades as an AI proxy: on a day three quarters of the market was down, "copper stocks, many of them up 10%. That's kind of an AI stock, AI area." He declines to name the individual shorts.
The popular argument runs: AI needs data centres, data centres need electricity and wiring, wiring needs copper — so buy copper miners as a safer way to own the AI theme. Tardif's answer is that the market has already made that trade, which means copper stocks are now an AI stock with an AI valuation and an AI downside. He points at a single day's tape as proof: three quarters of the market fell, and copper miners rose 10%.
His objection is a valuation comparison rather than a view on the copper price. On every measure he uses — price relative to the value of the assets in the ground, price relative to cash flow, price relative to earnings — copper equities trade far above gold equities. He owns a little copper and shorts some, which is a relative bet: if the whole complex falls, the expensive half falls further.
And the trigger is the same one behind his semiconductor short. Copper demand from the AI build-out is capital spending, and capital spending is exactly what he expects to peak and then decline. "Copper stocks are likely to go down once we go down the other side of the mountain and capex starts to go down. And it could be in 27, maybe it's in 28. That's a real debate. In my mind it's not if."
10:54I mean copper stocks are likely to go down once we go down the other side of the mountain and capex starts to go down. And it could be in 27, maybe it's in 28. That's a real debate. In my mind it's not if. — This is an interesting perspective. So long gold versus copper. Gold relatively more attractive than copper right now.
In short: An unprompted correction of his own 2026 call: "I've made mistakes in a couple interviews that you and I have done this year, David, where I said that I expected the increase in the copper price to be moderated by what I saw as a weakening economy. That hasn't happened. I was just dead wrong." He rejects the framing that copper is "a puppet to the AI buildout story": "I don't believe that… copper is an industrial material, and though it's forward-looking, it's not thinking that far in the future" — data centres are "a 2-year forward, or 3-year forward, or 5-year forward phenomenon. The copper quote is weekly." Higher nominal rates should penalise inventory holding (traders "using 90% margin"), so a strong spot price is real demand: "the underlying economy around the world is substantially stronger than I thought it would be… I'm at a loss to explain the economic strength that we're enjoying." He grants the narrative applies to the miners' out-year case.
This entry is mostly Rule marking his own homework wrong. He spent 2026 arguing copper would be held back by a weakening economy: "That hasn't happened. I was just dead wrong." Volunteering that unprompted is the point — the rest of his reasoning here is built on taking the miss seriously rather than explaining it away.
He then rejects the popular explanation that copper is simply riding the AI story. His argument is about timing. Data centres and the electrical grid to power them are "a 2-year forward, or 3-year forward, or 5-year forward phenomenon. The copper quote is weekly." Copper is a physical industrial material bought by people who need it now; it doesn't price events five years out the way a stock does. And higher interest rates should actively discourage traders from sitting on inventory, since they finance it with borrowed money at 90% margin. So a strong spot price in a high-rate world is unlikely to be speculation.
Which leaves an uncomfortable conclusion he states directly: the copper price is telling him "the underlying economy around the world is substantially stronger than I thought it would be" — in a time of war, higher rates and threatened trade wars. He concedes the AI narrative does inflate the miners' out-year valuations, but insists the metal itself is reporting real demand. His closing line reads as a challenge to policymakers: "I'm at a loss to explain how the government can conjure this as a bad economy, one that needs lower interest rates."
32:14And anyway, copper and the S&P move together. And this relationship is stronger than copper versus gold if you were to chart both of them together. Is copper really just a play on the AI story now? — I don't believe that. There are physical costs to holding copper. Copper is an industrial material, and though it's forward-looking, it's not thinking that far in the future.
In short: The big market you must own for the AI/demographics build-out — "copper, which is a great big market, will do extraordinarily well." 30 years of underinvestment + a 16–17-year supply-response lag mean nothing can alter supply in a reasonable timeframe; demand can only be cut by a depression. Friedland: more copper needed 2026–2050 than in all recorded history. Rationing-by-price is locked in.
This fund owns a basket of copper-mining companies, so it's a way to bet on copper without picking one miner. Rule's case is mechanical, not hopeful: building all the AI data centers people expect needs enormous amounts of copper, and the mining industry simply can't dig it up fast enough. New copper mines take 16–17 years from first exploration to production, and the world skipped 30 years of building them. Mining pioneer Robert Friedland says the world will need more copper between now and 2050 than has been mined in all of recorded history — before you even add data centers. When demand outruns what mines can supply and you can't fix supply for over a decade, the only way to balance the market is "rationing by price" — the price climbs until enough buyers drop out. The one thing that breaks the thesis is a global depression that crushes demand, so this is a bet for people who think the world muddles through.
39:28Well, to play the game successfully, you need big markets. You need energy markets or copper markets. The truth is if the AI circumstance that you describe, and the demographics that we believe occur over the next 20 years, occurs, copper, which is a great big market, will do extraordinarily well.
In short: Locked-in structural deficit: current output is already in deficit to consumption; the 10 largest copper miners need $250B (constant-2025) over 10 years just to maintain output, and meeting 2050 demand would need more copper in 15 years than in all human history. After 30 years of underinvestment, "it's too late to correct supply shortages in the next 5–10 years" — so rationing-by-price barring a synchronized global depression.
This ETF holds a basket of copper-mining companies, so it's a way to bet on the copper price without picking one miner. Rule's argument is arithmetic, not hope: the world is already using more copper than it digs up, and just to hold output flat the ten biggest miners would need to spend about $250 billion over a decade (in today's dollars, before inflation). Meeting the energy build-out projected for 2050 would require more copper in the next 15 years than humanity has mined in all of history — after three decades of under-spending on new mines. New mines take many years to permit and build, so he says it's simply too late to fix the shortage in the next 5–10 years. The result, unless a global recession crushes demand, is "rationing by price" — the price keeps climbing until enough buyers are priced out to balance the shortfall.
11:08But the energy consumption numbers that people are talking about by 2050 — we can't do it. We just can't do it. Doing so would require, as an example, more copper production — Yeah. — over the next 15 years than has occurred in all of human history. Given that we have underinvested in the copper business for 30 years, in the timelines mentioned, we can't do it. It's impossible.
In short: "Copper is the metal everything runs through — you can't print it or substitute it. I'm all in on copper." Owns COPX as the "own the whole trade" leg — long the producers, "be long and forget about it," so a single mine collapse or bad jurisdiction can't sink him.
COPX is a basket of copper-mining stocks. Larson is "all in on copper" because it's "the metal everything runs through — you can't print it or substitute it," and AI data centers, electrification and the grid all need huge amounts of it. By owning the whole-sector ETF, he gets the copper bet without single-company risk: he doesn't have to worry that one mine collapses or one foreign government turns hostile. "Just own the trade, be long, and forget about it" — this is his safe leg of the copper barbell.
26:45I don't know who's going to be right. I don't want to wake up one morning and find some mine shaft collapsed or this went wrong in some foreign country or jurisdiction. And so directionally and tangentially, I just want to be long an allocation to the producer. So I'll buy a COPX or something like that.
In short: Copper is "the king of metals" and AI's next bottleneck: even just growing with GDP, the world needs ~700M tons over 18 years — as much as was mined in all of history — needing ~5 new tier-1 mines a year (almost none are coming, and a mine takes 7–12 years). The price "easily doubles."
COPX is a basket of copper-mining companies — a simple way to own "copper" without picking one miner. Dreyfus's case is pure supply-and-demand. Copper is in almost everything we're about to build a lot of: power grids, solar and wind, electric cars, and especially AI data centers (a single 1-gigawatt AI site needs ~50,000 tons of copper).
The scary part is the supply side: humanity mined ~700 million tons of copper over 10,000 years, and just to keep up with normal growth we'd need that much again in the next 18 years — roughly five giant new mines opening every year. Almost none are coming, and a new mine takes 7–12 years to build while the old ones are wearing out. Less supply chasing way more demand is why he thinks the copper price "easily doubles."
10:39Now listen carefully. That means over the next 18 years, we're going to need 700 million tons of copper. Over the next 18 years, we're going to need as much copper as we mined in the last 10,000 years. That means we're going to need five worldclass mega tier one mines coming online every single year.
In short: A top-3 commodity — sees copper above $7/lb (already breaking out); the June-30 Section 232 report should classify copper strategic → tariffs on processed copper rising in 2027-28; ore-grade declines and Peru/Chile outages favor junior copper miners in good jurisdictions.
COPX is an ETF that holds a basket of copper-mining stocks, so it rises and falls with copper miners as a group. Prins ranks copper a top-3 commodity and expects the price above $7 a pound — it's already breaking through.
The big catalyst is "Section 232" — a US trade law that lets the government restrict imports for national-security reasons. A government report due June 30 is likely to label copper a strategic, critical material, which would let the US slap tariffs on processed (refined) copper starting in 2027–28. That matters because the actual refining of copper happens mostly in China; the US ships ore out and buys finished metal back.
On top of that, copper is simply getting scarcer: ore quality is declining, mines in Peru and Chile have had outages, and a brand-new mine takes well over a decade to permit and build. So she favors smaller "junior" copper miners that are far enough along in permitting, in stable countries.
5:46So we are going to continue to see um you know these new records and we had suggested that copper would be above seven actually by the end of this year dollars per pound. We think that's going to continue already seeing breaks above that. Um, and also it's important about the orgrades. We've seen a lot of outages in Peru and Chile and so forth.
In short: Update (take gains) — "the fun stuff": ~doubled (~79% in nine months) since the Aug-25-2025 highlight; copper itself broke above $6/lb for the first time. Both "quite extended" though the long-term story stays upbeat. "Cashing in some gains on COPX right now seems to us the wise course of action."
COPX is a basket of copper-mining stocks. Haymaker recommended it in August 2025 and it has roughly doubled (about +79% in nine months) as copper itself broke above $6 a pound for the first time ever. They still like copper long-term, but both the metal and the miners now look "quite extended" (stretched), so the sensible move is to sell some and lock in the gains — a take-profits call, not a change of long-term view.
In short: Copper case "very clear" — ~2.5%/yr demand growth even without AI; Friedland told him data-center demand means the world consumes more copper in the next 15 years than in all of human history.
COPX is an ETF holding a basket of copper-mining companies — one ticker for broad exposure to copper. Rule says the case is "very clear": copper demand grows about 2–2.5% a year for the next decade even if artificial intelligence never adds a thing.
On top of that, mining executive Robert Friedland told him that the electricity-hungry data centers behind AI mean the world will use more copper in the next 15 years than in all of human history combined — and even stripping AI out, it'd be 30 years' worth. Either way, the demand picture for copper is overwhelming.
32:47I talked to Robert Friedland the other day and Robert was telling me that with the projected demand for data centers, we will consume more copper in the next 15 years than we've consumed in the history of humankind. If you take data centers out of the equation, it will take 30 as opposed to 15 years. In either case, the case for copper and the case for uranium is very clear.
In short: Copper miners vs the Nasdaq are the "most overbought in ~30 years" (parabolic) — be careful; still long-term bullish on the grid rebuild, but trimming.
COPX holds copper-mining companies. Copper is essential for electricity, so it's central to rebuilding the power grid for AI and electrification — a story he likes long-term.
But the price has run up too hard, too fast. Versus the Nasdaq, copper miners are the "most overbought in ~30 years" (a parabolic, vertical move that usually snaps back). So he's still a long-term believer but is trimming and cautious right now — hence neutral rather than a fresh buy.
18:05And so it's one of these moves where we've had a rush in, but you still got the power grid that has to be reconstructed. You still have a lot of bullish parts of this copper trade, but it just gotten way ahead of itself. And you have to be very careful when you have those kind of parabolic moves.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.