On August 19, BHP Billiton rose 3.11% in pre-market trading, trading at $91.81/share, with turnover of $1.0622 million. The move follows the release of the company's full-year fiscal 2026 results, which beat market expectations across key metrics while declaring the highest dividend payout in four years.

BHP reported underlying basic EPS of $5.20, surpassing the consensus estimate of $5.08 and representing a 30% year-over-year increase from $4.00. Full-year revenue came in at $58.76 billion, above the $57.99 billion estimate. The board declared a final dividend of $0.99 per share, bringing the full-year payout ratio to 66%, approximately 10% above market expectations. RBC Capital Markets subsequently raised its assumed dividend payout ratio for BHP from 50% to 60%.

Notably, copper revenue surpassed iron ore for the first time in the company's history, contributing 54% to group EBITDA at $18.2 billion. BHP is now targeting a self-funded 40% copper production increase from fiscal 2026 to 2035, with approximately $12 billion in cumulative free cash flow from copper during fiscal 2027 to 2031. For fiscal 2027, the company guided copper production of 1.7 to 1.8 million tonnes and iron ore production of 260 to 272 million tonnes.

(The above content is based on publicly available market information, generated by a program or algorithm, and is intended solely as a stock movement alert. It does not constitute investment advice or a basis for trading decisions.)