3 Multi-Metal Stocks for Income and Long-Term Growth

Key Points

• Long-term demand drivers for copper, gold, and silver remain intact despite recent price weakness.
• Freeport-McMoRan and Southern Copper offer direct exposure to copper, a key beneficiary of AI infrastructure and electrification trends.
• Wheaton Precious Metals combines precious metals exposure with a capital-light business model and growing dividend income.

The rally in metals that seemed inevitable at the end of 2025 has taken a pause. That has some investors wondering if the shine has come off this trade. That might be a mistake. What’s happening in the sector today has more to do with shifting short-term priorities. The long game for gold, silver, and copper remains bullish.

For example, since reaching a high of over $5,500 an ounce in December 2025, the spot price of gold has dropped due to expectations of higher interest rates to tackle inflation, rising real yields, which make U.S. Treasuries more appealing, and short-term profit-taking. The conflict with Iran has also caused many countries to sell gold to bolster their own currencies.

But zoom out, and the picture looks different. J.P. Morgan expects gold prices to push toward $5,000 per ounce by the fourth quarter of 2026, with $6,000 a possibility longer term, supported by central bank demand averaging roughly 585 tonnes per quarter. That number reflects a structural shift in how central banks and institutional investors think about the dollar and global debt.

There’s Still Time to Buy This Dip

It’s a cliche to say that time in the market beats timing the market, but cliches resonate because they’re true. In this case, it’s hard to predict with certainty when the metals commodity cycle will turn bullish.

But the long-term outlook for copper, gold, and silver is supported by forces that don't reverse overnight. Start with copper. The story has evolved from a simple industrial demand play into something more structural. An S&P Global study published in January 2026 found that demand from AI infrastructure and energy transition alone is expected to exceed copper supply by more than 7 million metric tons by 2040.

J.P. Morgan estimates that a single large AI data center can require up to 50,000 tonnes of copper, with total data center demand projected to reach 475,000 tonnes annually by 2026. That's more than a tailwind.

Gold and silver tell a similar story. The same geopolitical uncertainty and dollar skepticism that created the 2025 rally haven't gone away—they've just been temporarily overshadowed by rate anxiety and profit-taking. For patient investors, that's usually an opportunity. Here are three names to consider.

FCX: The Biggest Copper Lever You Can Pull

Freeport-McMoRan NYSE: FCX is the largest publicly traded copper producer in the world, and its Q1 2026 results were a reminder of what the business looks like when copper prices cooperate. Revenue reached $6.23 billion with net income of $881 million, as the company sold 657 million pounds of copper at an average realized price of $5.78 per pound, with spot prices topping $6 per pound at times during the quarter.

Despite beating earnings estimates by more than 21%, shares dropped sharply on guidance concerns tied to the Grasberg Block Cave mine in Indonesia, where a wet-ore bottleneck is expected to reduce copper output by about 9% through 2031. 

That's a real issue, but it's also a well-defined, solvable one.

Meanwhile, FCX trades at roughly 8.1x NTM EV/EBITDA—a forward-looking measure of enterprise value against expected operating cash flow. This comes in above Rio Tinto NYSE: RIO and Glencore OTCMKTS: GLNCY, but well below Southern Copper NYSE: SCCO at 14.5x.

For the world's largest copper producer operating in the most structurally supported commodity market of the decade, that's a valuation worth taking seriously.

SCCO: Premium Copper, Premium Returns

Southern Copper doesn't come cheap, and it never really has. The market pays for it because the operational quality justifies it. In Q1 2026, SCCO posted net sales of $4.25 billion and record net income of $1.58 billion—results driven by both higher copper prices and the company's exceptionally low-cost mining operations in Peru and Mexico. The stock has returned over 80% in the past 12 months, and it's still getting analyst upgrades.

The income component is worth noting for investors seeking something beyond a price-appreciation story. SCCO's dividend has grown at an average of 29% per year over the past decade, and EPS is forecast to grow 23% over the next three years, which should continue to support that payout.

The valuation is stretched by most traditional measures, but SCCO has historically traded at a premium—and in a tight copper market, that premium tends to hold.

This is a name for investors seeking clean, high-margin copper exposure and who are willing to pay for it.

WPM: The Streamer That Prints Cash

Wheaton Precious Metals NYSE: WPM is a different kind of metals play. It doesn't mine anything. Instead, it finances miners in exchange for the right to buy gold and silver at fixed, below-market prices for the life of the mine. That model insulates Wheaton from the cost inflation that punishes traditional producers, and it creates extraordinary leverage to rising metal prices.

Wheaton reported record Q1 2026 revenue of $901.5 million and net earnings of $582 million. That was more than double on a year-over-year basis. The revenue growth was driven by a 98% jump in realized gold-equivalent prices and strong production from flagship streams at Salobo, Antamina, and Peñasquito.

The company declared a quarterly dividend of approximately 20 cents per share, an 18% increase. Plus, its balance sheet remains one of the cleanest in the sector with $2.16 billion in cash and minimal debt.

Long-term guidance calls for roughly 50% production growth to 1.2 million gold-equivalent ounces by 2030, supported by a pipeline of streaming contracts already in place. For investors looking for precious metals exposure without the operational risk of a mining company, WPM is about as elegant a vehicle as exists in the sector.