NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) - Get Report were falling 4.5% to $17.41 Thursday after the copper mining company halted production at its Grasberg mine in Papua.

The company stopped production at the second-largest copper mine in the world by capacity as workers blocked an access road to the mine for a fourth day, according to Bloomberg. Workers started blocking the access road to the complex on Monday to protest a settlement Freeport-McMoRan reached with other employees.

The protest was not organized by any union. "We appreciate the workers' rights to express their opinions," Freeport Indonesia spokesperson Juli Parorrongan told Bloomberg. "But we hope all issues can be appropriately addressed without harming the company."

While Freeport-McMoRan suspended output in Grasberg, concentration shipments were unaffected from old stockpiles.

TheStreet Ratings team rates FREEPORT-MCMORAN INC as a Sell with a ratings score of D+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate FREEPORT-MCMORAN INC (FCX) a SELL. This is driven by some concerns, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, generally high debt management risk, disappointing return on equity, weak operating cash flow and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Metals & Mining industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 503.4% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $707.00 million to -$2,852.00 million.
• The debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04 is relatively high when compared with the industry average, suggesting a need for better debt level management. To add to this, FCX has a quick ratio of 0.59, this demonstrates the lack of ability of the company to cover short-term liquidity needs.
• Return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of major weakness within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Metals & Mining industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, FREEPORT-MCMORAN INC underperformed against that of the industry average and is significantly less than that of the S&P 500.
• Net operating cash flow has significantly decreased to $1,118.00 million or 53.33% when compared to the same quarter last year. In conjunction, when comparing current results to the industry average, FREEPORT-MCMORAN INC has marginally lower results.
• Despite any intermediate fluctuations, we have only bad news to report on this stock's performance over the last year: it has tumbled by 38.61%, worse than the S&P 500's performance. Consistent with the plunge in the stock price, the company's earnings per share are down 504.41% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: FCX Ratings Report