Today's Neodymium "News"

J

Jack Arnott

Senior
Jan 29, 2011
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Hello All,

So today whilst talking to a customer of mine on the phone he related this bit of info to me.
According to a customer of his who just got back from China, word on the street/market there is
that the government is stockpiling neo for large high speed rail projects.
You heard it here first.

Regards, Jack
 
Re: Today's Neodymium "News"

I can believe that. From the brief discussions I've heard, magnetic levitation is the way to go when you are building new high speed rail infrastructure from the ground up and not trying to shoe horn it into existing rail projects. I wish we would do the same here.
 
Re: Today's Neodymium "News"

Justice C. Bigler said:
I can believe that. From the brief discussions I've heard, magnetic levitation is the way to go when you are building new high speed rail infrastructure from the ground up and not trying to shoe horn it into existing rail projects. I wish we would do the same here.
Click to expand...

Hello,

Good idea.... but, we're fifty years behind the eight-ball. We built interstate freeways and built up a large airline system, while buses and passenger trains took a back seat...so to speak.

While I like the idea of Mag-Lev trains... we can't afford it.

Hammer
 
Re: Today's Neodymium "News"

I got word that China has decided to release neodymium for sale through January, then reassess. They had a cutoff date of August before. Hopefully by that time some other mines will be getting close to production ready.
 
Re: Today's Neodymium "News"

I read an article in yesterday's WSJ about how high the short interest is in rare earth metal company's stocks (shorting a stock means selling borrowed shares in a bet they will go down in the future so investor can buy them back cheaper for a profit). Apparently one high level executive inside one of the RE companies sold a bunch of his personal holdings (Note: this is not always a definitive indicator of sentiment since people can need to raise money for random reasons). Also the stock prices for this group have lost about 30% so far this year. The shorts are betting they will go lower and the price/rarity fears are unfounded.

The recent announcement to release oil from our strategic reserve has apparently broken the back(side) of a bunch of hedge funds that were speculating on increasing oil and commodity prices. Also Bernanke's quantitative easing is set to expire soon which should also remove some upward pressure from commodity prices.

Should be an interesting summer...

JR
 
Re: Today's Neodymium "News"

A dearth of RE ore has never been the limiting constraint (it's the processing). If that new find is less radioactive, that doesn't suck for processing. While 10,000 to 20,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific ocean doesn't seem all that easy to mine, at least you don't have to dig a hole (to start).

I also saw in today's news that China got pinged by the WTO for unfair restrictions on selling some commodities, mostly associated with steel making and other industrial materials. While not RE elements specifically in this complaint, it suggests they would lose a similar complaint about RE restrictions.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43647665

JR
 
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