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Here Comes Nvidia AI giant Nvidia reports this week. Wall Street will also take in another key inflation gauge and new data on GDP. Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.5%, the S&P 500 dropped 1.7%, and the Nasdaq lost 2.5%. So far, in 2025, the Dow and the S&P 500 are both up 2%, while the Nasdaq has gained 1%. The earnings train continues. Highlights this week include Zoom Communications on Monday; Home Depot, Intuit, and Keurig Dr. Pepper on Tuesday; Nvidia, Saleforce.com, Lowe's, and TJX on Wednesday; and HP and Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday. Some 425 (85%) of the S&P 500 companies have reported so far, and earnings for 4Q show a strong growth rate of about 16% over the prior-year quarter. That compares to 9% growth in 3Q. Communication Services, up 33%, and Financial, up 30%, are the best-performing sectors, while Energy is the worst, down 30%, according to Refinitiv. We forecast 12% EPS growth for 2025 and 11% EPS growth for 2026. On the economic calendar, the most-important indicator coming is a measure of inflation, namely the Personal Consumer Expenditures Index (PCE, due on Friday). This week also includes the Case-Shiller Home Price Index on Tuesday; New Home Sales on Wednesday; GDP and Durable Goods Orders on Thursday; and Personal Income and Personal Spending on Friday. PCE is the Economic Call of the Week from Argus' Chief Economist Chris Graja, CFA, who offers the following. 'We expect PCE to ease slightly for January. We see the headline number at 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. That would be a tick lower than 2.6% in December, but still above the Fed's 2% target. We expect Core PCE, excluding food and energy, to be up 2.7% versus 2.8% in December. The PCE report follows the release of the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index. Both CPI and PPI came in hot, but we are hopeful that this Friday's release will show progress has been made on inflation because some components of PPI which flow into the PCE looked encouraging.' Last week, mortgage rates dipped 2 basis points (bps), with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage now at 6.85%, according to FreddieMac. Gas prices rose two cents to an average of $3.15 per gallon for regular gas. The Atlanta Fed GDPNow indicator is forecasting for 1Q and calls for expansion of 2.3%. For 2025, our GDP estimate is for 2.1% growth. The Cleveland Fed Inflation Nowcast is forecasting a 2.82% rate for CPI for February, higher than last week due to the surprise bump last week in the January rate. We expect pricing pressures to ease as the housing market cools due to high mortgage rates, supplies of new vehicles are replenished, and the price of oil stays below $90 per barrel. Looking ahead, the next Fed rate decision is on March 19, with odds at just 6% for a rate cut, according to the CME FedWatch rate tool. After that, the next meeting is on May 7, and odds are at 32% for a cut.

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Rio Tinto is a global diversified miner. Iron ore is the dominant commodity, with significantly lesser contributions from copper, aluminum, diamonds, gold, and industrial minerals. The 1995 merger of RTZ and CRA, via a dual-listed structure, created the present-day company. The two operate as a single business entity, with shareholders in each company having equivalent economic and voting rights. Major assets included the Pilbara iron ore operations, a 30% stake in the Escondida copper mine, 66%-ownership of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia, the Weipa and Gove bauxite mines in Australia, and six hydro-powered aluminum smelters in Canada.

Freeport-McMoRan owns stakes in 10 copper mines, led by its 49% ownership of the Grasberg copper and gold operations in Indonesia, 55% of the Cerro Verde mine in Peru, and 72% of Morenci in Arizona. It sold around 1.2 million metric tons of copper (its share) in 2024, making it the one of the world’s largest copper miners by volume. It also sold about 900,000 ounces of gold, mostly from Grasberg, and 70 million pounds of molybdenum. It had about 25 years of copper reserves at end December 2024. We expect it to sell similar amounts of copper midcycle in 2029, though we expect gold volumes to decline to about 700,000 ounces then due to falling production at Grasberg.