The BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) share price was on a bit of a rollercoaster in January, with shares closing at lows of $38.70 on 7 January and highs of $40.61 on 21 January.
As for the full month, shares in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) mining giant ended 2024 trading for $39.55. When the closing bell rang on 31 January, shares were changing hands for $39.95 apiece, up 1.0%.
While that does mark a positive start for the BHP share price after the miner's stock sank 21% in 2024, it significantly trails the 4.6% gains posted by the ASX 200 over the month just past.
Here's what's been happening with BHP.
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What's been impacting the BHP share price?
The relative resilience of the iron ore price and an uptick in copper prices acted as tailwinds for the BHP share price in January.
Iron ore, BHP's top revenue earner, closed out 2024 at around US$103 per tonne before dropping to US$98 per tonne early in the month and then recovering to US$102 per tonne. Copper, BHP's number two revenue earner, gained 2.8% over the month, closing out January at US$9,048 per tonne.
Outside of the impact of commodity prices, on 16 January, the BHP share price closed up 0.5% after the miner announced that, together with Lundin Mining, it had completed its acquisition of Canadian listed copper miner Filo Corp. BHP said it expected the copper assets would help support the booming growth in artificial intelligence (AI).
"BHP is one of the world's leading producers of copper, a metal essential to global economic growth, the energy transition and to the rapidly growing demand for data centres to support the harnessing of artificial intelligence," BHP CEO Mike Henry said on the day.
January also saw the release of BHP's half year update, released on the 21st.
The BHP share price closed up 0.9% on the day after the ASX 200 miner reported a 10% year-on-year boost in copper production to 987,000 tonnes for the six months.
Iron ore production also lifted, increasing by 1% to 131 million tonnes. However, the average realised price BHP received tumbled by 22% year on year to US$81.11 per wet metric tonne (wmt).
Still, Henry was justifiably pleased by the six-month results.
"BHP delivered safe and reliable performance in the first half. Our flagship copper, iron ore and steelmaking coal assets delivered particularly strong production in the period," he said.
Turning our clock back to the present, on this first day of February, the BHP share price is down 2.3% at $39.02. The miner is catching headwinds from wider investor jitters following major tariff announcements against Mexico, Canada and China by United States President Donald Trump.
