This is like Gold jumping to $3300 and Wealth Minerals has one of the best rare earth deposits around. :-)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rare-earth-price-rally-to-lift-asian-producers-2010-10-18?dist=beforebell
Asia Markets
Oct. 18, 2010, 12:10 a.m. EDT
Rare-earth price rally to lift Asian producers
Japanese manufacturers hold off price pain for now
By Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — A sharp drop in Chinese exports of rare-earth metals has fueled a rally in global prices, and Asian miners of these commodities are poised to benefit.
And while Japanese manufacturers that use the metals have managed to hold off the brunt of the price pain for the now, shortages of the metals are possible next year, strategists said.
Japanese companies have seen a large decline in imports of the rare earths from China since July, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the situation worsened after the Japanese detained a fishing-boat captain in disputed waters in the East China Sea in August, raising tension between the two nations.
“While investors watch the gold price touch new highs, metals termed ‘rare earth’ that are used in a variety of industrial applications have climbed far faster over the past month,” strategists at Nomura told clients in a note issued last week.
Rare earths, comprised of about 17 elements, serve as vital components in everything from lasers, optical fibers and petroleum refining, to automotive parts, computer monitors and televisions. Read report on rare-earth investment opportunities.
”The increasing need by the electronics industry for special metals with defined characteristics, such as inertness, conductivity and fusibility, has seen a revival in demand for [rare earths],” Nomura strategists said.
That demand combined with the tension between China and Japan last month to boost prices for the rare earths worldwide.
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. (JP:40634,480, +15.00, +0.34%) /quotes/comstock/11i!shecf (SHECF0.00, 0.00, 0.00%) in August announced a 20% price increase for its main product, rare-earth magnets, noting that prices for neodymium had climbed 2.5 times from the price seen in the summer of 2009, while prices for dysprosium had doubled since the beginning of this year. Find some price quotes for rare earths on Metal Pages.
Nomura reports that the price of rare earths has soared by 200% over the past three months.
And with China the world’s biggest producer, accounting for more than 95% of global supplies of rare earths, it could be at an advantage.
“China would withstand the inflation from higher prices due to massive volume of capacity and output [of rare earths], and control over most of the life cycle of the finished goods that the planet can’t live without,” said Richard Hastings, marco and consumer strategist at Global Hunter Securities. “All of this encourages more investment into China, from abroad but especially internally in China.”
Nomura’s rare-earths basket of stocks includes Aluminum Corp. of China /quotes/comstock/22h!e:2600 (HK:26008.02, -0.22, -2.67%) /quotes/comstock/11i!almmf (ALMMF1.02, +0.04, +3.91%) , also known as Chalco, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co. /quotes/comstock/28c!e:600111 (CN:60011181.54, -4.57, -5.31%) , Jiangxi Copper Co. /quotes/comstock/22h!e:358 (HK:35821.55, -1.30, -5.69%) , and China Rare Earth Holdings Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22h!e:769 (HK:7694.30, +0.08, +1.90%) .
In early afternoon trading, shares of Chalco fell 1%, and Jiangxi Copper lost 2.2% while China Rare Earth Holdings tacked on 4.7% in Hong Kong, defying broader weakness in the Hang Seng Index /quotes/comstock/08s!i:hsi (HK:HSI23,469, -288.25, -1.21%) which fell 1.1%. In Shanghai, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth fell 0.1%, though China’s Shanghai Composite climbed 0.5%
Meanwhile, Australian companies are set to add more production, Nomura strategists said, so the rare-earths basket also includes Lynas Corp. /quotes/comstock/22x!e:lyc (AU:LYC1.65, -0.04, -2.08%) /quotes/comstock/11i!lyscf (LYSCF1.66, -0.02, -1.19%) , which was trading flat in Sydney; Arafura Resources Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22x!e:aru (AU:ARU1.73, +0.05, +2.68%) /quotes/comstock/11i!araff (ARAFF1.71, +0.04, +2.40%) , which added 4.2%; and Alkane Resources Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22x!e:alk (AU:ALK1.02, -0.04, -3.77%) /quotes/comstock/11i!alkef (ALKEF1.05, -0.01, -0.94%) , down 1.4%. The S&P/ASX 200 /quotes/comstock/27w!i:xat (AU:XAT4,655, -37.35, -0.80%) was 0.9% lower.