BHP and RIO are two stocks most closely followed by MM subscribers; just look at Saturday’s Q&A. Hence, it caught our attention when one of the leading stories in yesterday’s AFR was “Brokers go all in on RIO tipping 20% annual share price jump”, i.e., at MM, we’ve preferred BHP over RIO over recent years. They believe that RIO is better positioned for a boom in industrial metals, and they also think it has a stronger balance sheet. A glance at the two stocks shows they’ve pretty much danced in tandem since COVID, while so far in 2024, BHP is down -12.2% and RIO -10.3%, with iron ore weighing on both miners.