10 Best Copper Stocks to Buy According to Wall Street Analysts

Copper is heading toward a supply crunch, and the world cannot fix it quickly. BloombergNEF’s latest metals outlook says the copper market could slip into deficit as soon as 2028, as producers struggle to replace the output of mines that are wearing out. In plain terms, the outlook describes a market where fewer tons come out of the ground each year while electrified transport and other uses keep pulling more in.

The harder part is the timing. A new copper mine takes about 17 years on average to develop, according to the report, so the supply that would ease a shortage has to be started long before the shortage arrives. That lead time shapes everything else in the outlook: the deficit, the investment bill and the date when the gap might close are all measured in years, not quarters.

A Deficit That Could Start in 2028

The outlook, released last month, estimates that about $332 billion of new mine capital is needed to head off a supply shock. Without that spending, BloombergNEF projects a cumulative shortfall of 20 million metric tons by 2050.

Supply is the weaker side of the balance. BloombergNEF estimates total mined supply could fall 14.5% to 25.7 million tons by 2050, from 30 million tons in 2026. Chile’s output is forecast to slide from 5.8 million tons this year to 4.8 million tons by 2050, even as its share of global mined supply rises to 28% from 24%. Put simply, the world is expected to need more copper while the mines now running deliver less of it.

Readers following the producers can find more names in our list of the best American mining stocks to buy right now.

Why New Supply Takes Years to Arrive

Demand keeps moving the other way. BloombergNEF expects demand tied to electrification to rise 89% to 23.3 million tons in 2050, and its analysts called electrified transport the fastest-growing copper application. That is the pull on a market whose supply is expected to shrink.

The analysts gave data centers a smaller role, calling them “a drop in the ocean for copper demand.” For readers who follow the supply side, our ranking of the best metal recycling stocks to buy covers the companies that reprocess metal.

The 17-year development time is what makes the gap so hard to close. Even if miners invested the full $332 billion, BloombergNEF says the shortfall would likely stay open until at least 2043, and the deficit itself could begin as early as 2028. The numbers make the point that more money alone does not shorten the wait.

Our Methodology

To compile this list, we searched for the best copper stocks to buy and the top copper mining stocks, and reviewed rankings published by financial websites over the past 12 months. From the stocks that came up, we picked the 10 with the highest average upside potential, based on analysts’ average price target, as of November 9, 2026. We also list each stock’s number of hedge fund holders as of Q2 2026, from our database of 1,006 hedge funds.

At Insider Monkey, we are obsessed with what hedge funds do. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 612% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 375 percentage points (see more details here).

10 Best Copper Stocks to Buy According to Wall Street Analysts

10. BHP Group (NYSE:BHP)

Market Cap: $203.04 billion

Average Upside Potential: -3%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 27

BHP’s latest quarterly review shows a miner with several engines running at once. Its Western Australia iron ore business set mine and port records, and both of its coal businesses produced more than they did a year earlier. Copper prices are about 50% higher than a year ago, a change the company said lifted earnings across the group.

The company is putting that strength into copper growth. It is funding the Escondida New Concentrator in Chile, expanding the resource base at Copper South Australia, and widening its copper pipeline across the Americas. For a closer look at how that spending is paid for, see our analysis of BHP’s copper exposure and rising capital costs.

Chief Executive Officer Brandon Craig said the Jansen potash project is “rapidly taking shape.” Its first stage is 87% complete and on track to begin producing in mid-2027, which would add a large new business alongside the copper expansion. Over the past 12 months, BHP kept 16.73% of its revenue as profit, a margin that gives it room to fund the copper build-out and the potash project at the same time.

9. Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO)

Market Cap: $142.73 billion

Average Upside Potential: 4%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 45

Southern Copper’s chairman, Germán Larrea, called the third quarter a strong one, and the numbers back him up. Net sales rose 39.1% from a year earlier to $4.70 billion, a quarterly record, as the average copper price on the London Metal Exchange climbed sharply. Net income also set a record, and over the past 12 months the company kept 37.16% of its revenue as profit.

Costs stay low because other products pay for much of the mining. After credits from by-products such as molybdenum and silver, the operating cash cost was $0.09 a pound of copper, which means the company earned nearly all of its copper price as margin.

Growth is lined up behind that profit. The Tia Maria mine in Peru is expected to produce 120,000 tonnes of copper a year once it starts up in the first half of 2028, and El Pilar in Mexico follows in the second half of 2029. Larrea said the company is “advancing toward our goal of increasing production to 1.6 million tonnes.” Los Chancas and Michiquillay in Peru are also on the schedule, so the pipeline reaches well beyond the next two projects.