Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) has had a pretty impressive 2026 so far.

The shares are up around 20% since the start of the year and more than 50% over the past 12 months.

The shares climbed as high as $195.84 earlier this year before falling back towards $160 in late July. Since then, the stock has worked its way higher again and is trading at $175.65 on Friday, down 0.82%.

So, do Rio Tinto shares still look like good value?

The shares aren’t exactly cheap

I don’t think the shares look especially cheap at current levels, but I also wouldn’t call them expensive.

Consensus forecasts point to earnings per share (EPS) of around $12.07 in FY26 and $12.04 in FY27. At today’s share price, that puts Rio Tinto on roughly 14.5 times forecast earnings.

There isn’t much growth in those numbers, although that is hardly unusual with a miner. Earnings can move around a lot from year to year depending on commodity prices.

The latest half-year result was also pretty strong.

Revenue rose 15% to US$31 billion, while underlying EBITDA increased 28% to US$14.8 billion. Underlying earnings climbed 43% to US$6.85 billion and operating cash flow rose 75% to US$9.8 billion.

That also allowed Rio Tinto to lift its interim dividend by 43% to US$2.11 per share.

There’s more than just iron ore

Iron ore is still the biggest part of Rio Tinto’s business, so earnings will always be sensitive to commodity prices and demand from China.

But the company is gradually becoming less reliant on it.

Copper, aluminium and lithium contributed more than half of underlying EBITDA in the first-half, while copper production from Oyu Tolgoi jumped 31%.

That gives Rio Tinto an interesting growth story, especially with copper demand expected to remain strong over the longer term.

And there is also more production still to come. Oyu Tolgoi continues to ramp up, while the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea is another major development that could add to volumes over the next few years.

What do brokers think?

This is where things get a bit more mixed.

TipRanks shows an average 12-month price target of $174.28 across 10 analysts, which is almost exactly where the shares trade today.

JPMorgan is the most bullish with a $207 target, while Ord Minnett and Jefferies are both at $187. Goldman Sachs has a target of $181.90 and Macquarie is at $180.

At the other end, Morgan Stanley has a ‘sell’ rating and $150 target, while RBC Capital is even more cautious at $143. Citi is at $171 and UBS at $177.

I think Rio Tinto still looks reasonably priced, but I wouldn’t be rushing in after a 20% rise this year. I’d rather wait for another pullback below $150 before buying around these levels.

The post Up 20% this year, are Rio Tinto shares still good value? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Motley Fool contributor Aaron Teboneras has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

My portfolio got an absolute thumping yesterday.

A shellacking.

I’m pretty sure it was the biggest percentage and dollar drop I’ve ever suffered in a single day.

The reason?

One of my larger shareholdings, Corporate Travel Management Ltd (ASX: CTD), resumed trading… more than a year after the shares were suspended from trade because the company hadn’t lodged its accounts.

The reason for that? CTM had uncovered systemic overcharging in parts of its business, and the more it looked, the more it found. The company spent that year getting to the bottom of the problem and then, crucially, trying to work out if it could repay its customers without going broke.

It thinks it can. It lodged its accounts. And the company’s shares resumed trading.

And then? The shares fell 85%. ‘Ouch’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The thing is, yesterday’s news was actually better than many had feared. Some speculated that it would never trade again. Others thought the fall might have been 90% or 95%. Or more.

CTM had sporadically updated shareholders on its progress, too, so we all knew what was happening. The only unknown was when the shares would start trading and how bad the carnage would be.

So, how do I feel?

Well, poorer, obviously.

And angry at the people inside the company who knew, or should have known, what was going on. And especially at those who (I should say ‘allegedly’ here, just to be safe) knowingly did the wrong thing.

Here’s the thing, though: No-one outside the company knew it was happening. Even the company’s previous auditors had signed off on the accounts, having presumably done the work of making sure everything was above board.

So, yes, I’m poorer and angry. But I’m also philosophical.

Life is unpredictable. Sometimes, you just get blindsided. That’s the nature of investing.

No, it’s not welcome. But it’s unavoidable. Stuff, to clean up the phrase a little, happens.

The other thing?

The collapse in CTM’s share price is precisely why good investing habits matter.

I’m diversified. By company, industry, currency and geography.

I have a long term perspective. Yesterday sucked. I suspect I’ll remember it in 5 or 10 years’ time. But I also suspect that, after that decade of compounding, that scar will have faded meaningfully – both financially and emotionally.

I expect bad news sometimes. Not because it’s welcome, but because life is messy. I don’t expect every company in my portfolio to do well. Sometimes, it’ll be because I made a mistake. Sometimes because a competitor, customer or supplier makes life harder for one of my investments. Sometimes there’ll just be ‘unwelcome misadventure’, to put it mildly.

We succeed as investors not by avoiding losing investments. That’s not possible, unless you stay in cash… and have you seen inflation, lately?

No, we succeed by doing the right things, which cushion the blows when the bad news comes, and crucially also letting the good news drive our compounding over long periods of time.

In hindsight, I can tell you precisely which companies I should have bought, and which I should have avoided. I can tell you how many shares I should have bought, and at what prices.

But without that, and without a working crystal ball, my job – and yours – is to think in probabilities and expected returns.

It is to assemble a portfolio of companies that we think are likely to deliver superior performance over the long term, knowing that we’ll be wrong sometimes, but aiming to be right more often – and for the winners to make more than the losers lose.

There is no successful investor in history who hasn’t made losing investments. It’s not how investing works.

They succeed despite those losses.

Could I have foreseen this? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. No-one outside the company knew – and presumably relatively few inside it. Even the auditors didn’t know (or if they did, they didn’t say). So how could we?

Could I avoid the next one? Sure, if I never invested again. But that would be incredibly counterproductive.

So what can I – we – take from the painful experience?

I think a reminder that investing is an imprecise art, full of uncertainty. 

But that it’s also incredibly worthwhile, overall, and these sorts of things, while gut-wrenching, are just the storms we have to sometimes sail through to reach our destination.

Was my CTM investment too large, as a proportion of my portfolio? It’s easy to say yes, but if I couldn’t possibly have predicted the alleged wrongdoing, isn’t that just hindsight speaking?

Yes… and no. The very reality of that uncertainty perhaps should have led me to have less of my portfolio in a single company. It’s something I’ll spend some time dwelling on, and might make some (other) changes in my portfolio in due course.

(There’s a personal wrinkle for me, in that I’m not allowed to recommend a company as a ‘Buy’ for our members and sell down if my position has become too large, so it’s probably moot in my particular case… but the principle still holds.)

But – and here’s the really important thing – as painful as it was, it has not dimmed my optimism for long-term investing one iota.

I share the Vanguard Index chart regularly in this space. It shows the progress of the ASX (and other markets and assets) over a thirty year period. It shows booms and crashes, economic greed and fear.

What it doesn’t show – but is inherent in the results – is that companies were born and died during that time. They were added to and removed from share market indices.

It doesn’t show the companies that lost 30%, 50%, 75% or yes, 85%, during that period. Some recovered. Some never did.

It shows the overall result. That despite those temporary and permanent losses, huge amounts of value were created, overall.

I wish I could avoid every loss, and grab every gain. I also wish for a unicorn and world peace.

In the real world, I know that this is a stumble for the value of one company in my portfolio. And I fully expect more (unfortunately).

I also fully expect that my portfolio will grow meaningfully over the next few decades, despite those stumbles. Ditto for the market as a whole.

Sailing through a storm isn’t fun. But getting to the other side, and to your destination, makes bearing the storms worthwhile.

I’m keeping my eyes firmly on the horizon. I reckon that’s the lesson of history, and the right approach for all investors.

Fool on!

The post Why I’m still smiling after losing 85% appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Scott Phillips has positions in Corporate Travel Management. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has positions in and has recommended Corporate Travel Management. The Motley Fool Australia has positions in and has recommended Corporate Travel Management. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

Shares in Gina-Rinehart-backed G50 Corp Ltd (ASX: G50) are trading about 50% below their highs over the past year, but the team at Morgans believes the shares are ripe for a rerating.

The broker has issued a research note to its clients with a speculative buy recommendation on the shares and a very bullish share price target, which I’ll get to shortly.

What’s so special about this ASX explorer?

One of the reasons for their confidence in the exploration company is the backing of iron ore magnate Ms Rinehart, whose company Hancock Prospecting invested $7.95 million into G50 as part of a recent share placement, emerging with a 5.4% stake.

The $26.25 million which was raised at 59.5 cents per share – the shares are currently changing hands for 49.5 cents – is to be used to accelerate exploration at the company’s Golconda Project in Arizona and its White Caps Project in Nevada.

The work will include further drilling, geological studies, gallium test work, and early permitting activities at Golconda.

Chair Ian Davies said regarding the placement:

We’re pleased to welcome Hancock Prospecting to the register as a cornerstone investor. Hancock is one of Australia’s most respected resources investors, and their decision to back a company whose assets sit entirely in the United States, across both precious metals and strategic minerals, is a meaningful endorsement of the work Mark and the team have done at Golconda and White Caps. The board’s focus is now on deploying this capital with discipline against the program we’ve set out and on the drilling and metallurgical test work that will ultimately determine the value of both projects.

Shares looking cheap, broker says

Morgans said recent drilling results had extended the strike length at Golconda to 1.8km, and there had also been a high-grade gold discovery at White Caps.

They added that metallurgical test work had confirmed the potential to generate a gallium-rich precious metals concentrate at Golconda through conventional processing methods.

The broker added:

We view Hancock’s investment as a strong endorsement of the G50 story, in particular its strategy to unlock and monetise its Golconda gallium. Hancock has taken a selective approach in recent years, deploying capital offshore and across the broader critical minerals thematic, taking substantial positions in names such as St George Mining, Vulcan Energy and MP Materials. We think Hancock’s due diligence of the project, capacity to support further funding and diversification into North America are all very supportive of the factors which differentiate G50 from other precious metals exposures.

Morgans said G50 was well-funded for 18 to 24 months. The broker has a price target on G50 shares of $1.94.

The company is valued at $118.4 million.

The post This Gina Rinehart-backed ASX explorer could rise almost 300%, Morgans says appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

More reading

• 8 ASX shares upgraded by the professionals post-results this week
• Up 20% this year, are Rio Tinto shares still good value?
• Why I’m still smiling after losing 85%
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• Down another 18%: Why I’d buy WiseTech shares in the dip

Motley Fool contributor Cameron England has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.