The Rolls-Royce (LON: RR) share price has done well this year, becoming one of the best performers in the FTSE 100 index. It has jumped by more than 35%, giving it a market cap of over £36 billion.

However, after weeks being the best-performing company in the FTSE 100 index this year, another giant has just overtaken it. Antofagasta, one of the biggest mining companies in the world, has become the best-performing company in the index.

Antofagasta’s share price has jumped sharply because of the rising copper prices. Copper has soared for three straight weeks and is now sitting at its highest point since June 2022. It has jumped by over 23% from its lowest point in October.

Antofagasta benefits when the price of copper is rising since it makes money mining it and selling it to buyers mostly in China. The most recent results showed that the company produced 2% in 2023 to 660,600 tons of copper last year. 

Its total profit before tax came in at $1.96 billion in 2023, a 23% retreat from the previous year’s $2.5 billion. This decline happened as the price of copper retreated by almost 20% between its highest and lowest point of the year.

Therefore, Antofagasta shares are soaring because of the surging copper prices, which reflect rising demand and supply constraints. In a note on Tuesday, an analyst from Bank of America noted that copper could rise by 8% in the coming months.

Broadly, copper fundamentals are relatively strong as rising demand meets with constrained supplies. Recent data shows that the copper market will be in 3.6 million tons this year. The deficit is expected to move to 4.5 million tons by 2025 as investments in infrastructure rise.

ANTO chart by TradingView

The weekly chart shows that the ANTO stock price has been in a strong bullish trend after bottoming at 500p in March 2020. It has bounced back to a high of 2,278p, a record high. Most recently, the stock jumped above the crucial resistance at 1,776p, its highest point in January last year.

The stock has gotten highly overbought, with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) approaching 80. Also, the Stochastic Oscillator has moved above almost 100. Therefore, there is a likelihood that the stock will retreat and retest the support at 2,000p and then resume the bull run.

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