The BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) share price outpaced the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) in February. But a sizeable retrace in the last trading week of the month still saw shares in the Aussie mining giant close the month in the red.
BHP stock closed out January trading for $39.95 a share. When the closing bell announced the end of trade on 28 February, shares were changing hands for $39.04.
This put the BHP share price down 2.3% over the month just past. Though that's considerably better than the 4.2% loss posted by the ASX 200 over this same time.
The miner enjoyed some support from a rising copper price and ongoing analyst bullishness about a strong medium-term outlook for the red metal. Copper counts as BHP's second biggest revenue earner. And the copper price gained 3.5% in February, rising to US$9,358 per tonne.
Iron ore, BHP's top revenue earner, also performed well over the month, gaining some 5% to close February at US$106 per tonne. But investors may be cautious about this rise, as most analysts are forecasting that a big upcoming lift in global iron ore supplies will send prices back below US$100 per tonne.
The biggest piece of news ASX 200 investors received over the month to gauge the value of the BHP share price was the release of the miner's half year results on 18 February.
Shares closed up 0.4% on the day, with the market having already widely priced in the reduction in some core financial metrics.
Over the six months, BHP reported an 8% year on year decline in revenue to US$25.2 billion. Revenues were supported by higher realised copper prices, but that wasn't enough to offset lower realised prices for the miner's iron ore and coking coal.
On the bottom line, underlying attributable profit fell 23% to US$5.1 billion.
This saw management slash the fully franked interim dividend by 28.4% to 78.5 cents per share.
If you'd like to bank that latest passive income payout you'll need to own shares at market close this Wednesday, 5 March. BHP stock trades ex-dividend on Thursday. At the current share price, the interim dividend offers a pending yield of 2.0%, with potential tax benefits from those franking credits.
Looking to the full FY 2025 year, BHP maintained its guidance for copper production of 1,845kt to 2,045kt and iron ore production of 255Mt to 265.5Mt.
With the BHP share price up 1.1% at $39.47 today, the first trading day of March, shares in the ASX 200 mining stock are down 10.6% over 12 months, not including dividends.
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