Freeport is selling more copper than it thought in pandemic

The world’s biggest publicly traded copper company is navigating the pandemic better than it thought.

Freeport-McMoRan expects to report about 8% more copper sales volume and 10% more gold in the second quarter than it forecast in April when it was first coming to grips with the implications of the coronavirus. The Phoenix-based company gave the rare update less than three weeks before its earnings release. Shares surged as much as 8.6%, the most in a month.