Our one mining company, the giant BHP Billiton (market cap about $129 billion U.S.) is updated and rated Speculative Buy. This is an inherently unpredictable company since its earnings can swing massively with commodity price changes. As detailed in the report its biggest product is iron ore at 35% of revenue in its fiscal 2018. Copper was 30%, Coal 21% and petroleum 13%. And petroleum will be lower in 2019 as it is in the process of closing the sale of a significant amount of its petroleum operations.
Given the inherent unpredictability of this commodity company the reason to buy it would be for diversification or perhaps if an investor has a particular interest in the mining sector.
The company has a very strange share structure in that it trades as two legally separate entities in London (BHP Billiton plc which also trades as an American Depository Receipt BBL in New York) and Australia (BHP Billiton Ltd. which also trades as the ADR BHP in New York). The Ltd. and plc companies are managed as one entity and the shares in the Ltd. and plc shares have equal economic and voting rights. Yet the plc shares traded at a 14% discount in New York as of October 16th. To add to the confusion the ADR represent two Ltd. or plc shares respectively. I have small position in the BBL shares.
BHP Billiton will soon drop the Billiton part of its name. BHP had merged as an equal with Billiton plc in 2001. Billiton was the name of an island in Indonesia where Tin was discovered in 1851 and Billiton plc was founded in 1860. BHP stands for the original name of BHP, the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited founded in 1885 and named after the hill (Broken Hill) in remote Australia where a rich deposit of lead and silver had been discovered in 1883.