London, June 10, 2026, 09:17 BST
Rio Tinto plc shares rose in early London trade on Wednesday, clawing back part of the previous session’s fall as investors weighed a still-soft iron ore market against the miner’s copper and aluminium growth story.
Delayed AJ Bell data showed Rio’s London-listed stock quoted at 7,553p to sell and 7,554p to buy, up 84p, or 1.12%, after opening at 7,526p. The previous close was 7,469p, and trading volume stood at 216,173 shares on the data feed.
The rebound followed a weak Tuesday, when Rio fell 1.80% to £74.69 and underperformed the FTSE 100’s 1.41% drop. The stock remained about 18% below its 52-week high of £91.17, reached on May 27.
That makes Wednesday’s move a repair trade, not a clean turn. The wider tape was only mildly supportive: European shares opened steady, with the STOXX 600 up 0.1% by 0710 GMT, as investors watched Middle East headlines and waited for U.S. inflation data.
The key swing factor is still iron ore, Rio’s biggest profit engine. Benchmark iron ore was quoted at $101.37 a tonne on June 9, up slightly on the day but down about 9% over the past month, according to Trading Economics data. The same data pointed to weaker Chinese steel demand as rain and early summer heat slowed construction activity.
Copper gave less help on Wednesday. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange slipped 0.32% to $13,572 a metric ton as macro worries and Middle East volatility outweighed tariff-related support, Reuters reported. That matters because copper is central to Rio’s pitch to investors as it tries to lessen its dependence on iron ore.
Rio’s latest operating update gives the bull case some material. In April, Chief Executive Simon Trott said “operating excellence drove 9% YoY copper equivalent production growth,” referring to copper equivalent, a measure that converts output from different commodities into a single copper-based figure. Rio also said copper production rose 9% year on year and Pilbara iron ore production rose 13%, though cyclone disruption hit shipments. Rio Tinto
Its 2025 financials were solid enough, but not without blemishes. Rio reported underlying EBITDA — earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, adjusted for one-offs — of $25.4 billion, up 9%, while net earnings fell 14% to $10.0 billion. It kept the ordinary dividend at 402 U.S. cents a share.
Peer moves were mixed, which kept the sector read-through untidy. BHP, the closest large iron ore comparator in London, was up 0.71% at 3,135p/3,137p on AJ Bell’s delayed quotes, while Glencore fell 0.97% to 564.10p/564.30p.
Glencore remains part of the Rio valuation debate even after the deal faded. Reuters reported in February that Rio walked away from takeover talks that could have created a mining group worth more than $200 billion; Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemina said a renewed approach was possible but “not our base case.” Reuters
Aluminium is another plank in the story. Rio said on May 29 it had started commissioning its $1.5 billion AP60 smelter expansion in Quebec, expected to add about 160,000 metric tonnes of annual primary aluminium capacity by the end of 2026. Jérôme Pécresse, Rio’s aluminium and lithium chief, called it “the first major primary aluminium project in the West in more than a decade.” Rio Tinto
But the risks are plain. A renewed slide in iron ore, weaker Chinese steel margins, another leg lower in copper or a sharper shock from Middle East tensions could turn Wednesday’s early bounce into a short-lived pause. For now, Rio is trading less like a special situation and more like what it still is: a high-quality miner tied tightly to the commodity cycle.
