🚨 Copper Margins Are Blowing Out

🔺 Copper prices near cycle highs
🔻 C1 costs historically low
➕ Gold & silver by-product credits at records

What’s happening?

• By-products are offsetting mining costs
• Energy and processing costs haven’t caught up
• Margins are at multi-year highs

This is a margin super-cycle for copper producers.

Do miners reinvest aggressively… or return cash before costs snap back?
#copper #mining #metals

China just handed itself a strategic own goal.

Beijing tried to pressure Japan by weaponizing rare earths. Export controls. Threats. Political pressure.
Instead of weakening Sanae Takaichi, it turbo-charged her support.

Every squeeze made her message stronger:
• China is a security risk
• Japan must re-arm
• Strategic autonomy matters

Public opinion hardened. Defense spending became easier to sell. Her leadership credentials improved.

So China quietly backed down and reopened exports. Not goodwill. Fear.

Fear that Japan would accelerate domestic rare-earth production.
Fear that once Japan produces its own supply, the US and Europe won’t care about price. They’ll buy security.

That’s the real loss for China.
Not leverage today. Permanent leverage tomorrow.

Lesson:
Coercion creates resilience.
Pressure builds alternatives.
And economic weapons stop working once the target adapts.

#china #Japan #minerals

The #uranium supply–demand model is broken

- India plans to 10x nuclear generation capacity by 2047, reaching 100 GW
- This would add 50 mlbs of annual uranium demand
- Equivalent to roughly 30% of current global uranium production

At the same time, uranium supply is expected to decline over this period.

This creates a projected cumulative deficit of 1.7B lbs...
nearly 10x current annual uranium production.

Uranium is one of my favorite long-term plays.

Trade $URA with up to 100x leverage: gains.trade/trading#URA-USD

Almost no one is invested in #gold miners.

- All gold and gold-mining ETFs combined have a market cap of ~$600B
- Apple alone has a market cap of ~$3.65T
- Apple’s market cap is ~5× larger
- Gold miners make up just ~0.2% of the S&P’s sector weighting

We haven’t seen the big capital rotation into gold miners yet.

We’re early.

🚨 CHINA’S $1.19 TRILLION SURPLUS

⚔️THIS IS THE REAL TRADE WAR MAP

Forget slogans, Follow the money

China just printed one of the largest trade surpluses in history.

And the partners tell you exactly where pressure will land next.

• 🇭🇰 Hong Kong: +$304B

• 🇺🇸 United States: +$280B

• 🇮🇳 #India: +$116B

• 🇻🇳 Vietnam: +$100B

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands: +$73B

• 🇬🇧 UK: +$66B

👉 Top 3 alone = $700B+

👉 Asia + US dominate the imbalance

👉 Europe is exposed but fragmented

📌 Why this matters now

• Tariffs are back
• Supply chains are being forced to move
• India is being courted, not pressured
• Vietnam is in the crosshairs
• Europe talks strategy, but absorbs surplus

#China doesn’t need confrontation everywhere.

It just needs persistent surplus concentration.

⚠️ Trade wars don’t start where deficits are small.

They start where imbalances are politically impossible to ignore.

The next phase of global trade tension will not be ideological.

It will be arithmetical.

Who do you think Washington pressures next.

Vietnam, India, or Europe?

US, Canadian and Australian critical minerals stocks surged during Fridays session.

Top performers include $ATMY up 27.54 percent, $UAMY up 15.42 percent, $UCU up 14.68 percent, $TMC up 13.45 percent, and $AREC up 12.64 percent. Notably, Canadian antimony explorer $MAXM, focused on highgrade projects in British Columbia, rose 7.65 percent, underscoring broader North American benefits from enhanced critical mineral security.

This development fosters economic resilience and national security through targeted stockpiling of essential materials like antimony and rare earths. #CriticalMinerals #ProjectVault

The fight between China and the US for control of resources will ignite a commodity bull market.

- China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment surged ~75% in 2025 vs. 2024
- Spending was dominated by energy, metals&mining

We’re now seeing an important dynamic play out.

As the US tries to regain independence from China’s dominance in critical minerals, by investing in mining and processing capacity, China is almost doubling its 2024 pace.

Make no mistake: these are resource wars.

For both empires, securing supply chains and resources is a matter of national security. Access and control matter more than profits.

In this environment, you want to own resources.

He who controls downstream industries ultimately rules upstream industries.

Former Hecla Mining president on #silver

- The US administration is looking to increase its silver stockpiles
- This is the first time in decades
- Silver production peaked in 2016
- Production will not reach that peak by 2030

Demand for silver is surging, while production is not.

Central bank gold buying is far from over

Despite record-high prices:

- Poland plans to buy as much as 150 tonnes of gold
- Poland would become one of the top 10 gold-holding countries
- Its central bank could allocate 30% of its assets to gold

#Gold is becoming the preferred reserve asset.

💥China’s grip on copper isn’t at the mine

It’s at the refinery

Copper underpins electrification, grids, EVs, and clean energy systems. But the real bottleneck is refining.

In 2024, 🇨🇳 China refined roughly 12 million tonnes of copper.

That’s more than the next 9 countries combined, including the 🇺🇸 US and 🇮🇳 India.

Mining spreads risk.

Refining concentrates power.

#copper #minerals #metals #China #India

$ATCX $ATLX $LGO $SGML

🇧🇷BRAZIL Critical Mineral Miners.

• A global race for Brazil’s vast deposits of rare earths is heating up, with the US, China and EU all vying for access to the minerals that are vital for an array of 21st-century technologies.

Upcoming Earnings.

Monday:
$CLF $GT $OPEN $SVM

Tuesday:
$OSCR $KO $HOOD $F

Wednesday:
$ALB $QS $AUR $FSLY

Thursday:
$COIN $RIVN $TOST $DKNG

Friday:
$WEN $CCJ $TRP $MGA

$UAMY #Antimony

UKRAINE 🇺🇦

🔸 #Ukraine is a "critical minerals superpower", possessing deposits of 117 out of the 120 most globally used metals and minerals. These resources, valued at over $26 trillion.

🔸 #Antimony
Ukraine possesses antimony deposits, though it is currently not a major producer.
The metal is recognized as a "critical" resource for Ukraine's future due to its essential role in defense technology.

#Antimony is included in the official Ukrainian government's list of critical minerals approved for development and auction.

Strategic minerals are those metallic and non-metallic resources of national importance that are essential for long-term economic development.

Critical minerals like #Antimony, however, include those already deemed strategic and others that are vital for the economy and defence, but are characterised by a lack of substitutes and a high risk of supply disruptions on the international market.
https://cms-lawnow.com/en/ealerts/2025/07/the-government-of-ukraine-has-approved-the-lists-of-strategic-and-critical-minerals#

#Antimony is one of the minerals the United States will gain access to under the landmark 2025 Mineral Resources Agreement signed with Ukraine.
https://imaginelawyers.com/legal/u-s-ukraine-minerals-agreement-and-implementation-framework/#

———

🔸 #Titanium:
Ukraine holds Europe’s largest reserves (7% of global reserves) and is one of the world's few producers of titanium ore, crucial for aerospace and defense.

———

🔸 #Lithium:
Estimates suggest nearly 500,000 tons of lithium (one of Europe's largest deposits), which is vital for electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

———

🔸 #Uranium:
Ukraine possesses Europe's largest recoverable uranium reserves (2% of world reserves), essential for nuclear power.

———

🔸 #Graphite:
The country holds 20% of the world's graphite resources, a key component for lithium-ion batteries.

———

🔸 #Manganese:
Ukraine has the world's largest proven reserves of manganese ores, primarily in the Nikopol Basin.

———

🔸 #RareEarth Elements (REEs): Significant deposits of scandium, yttrium, neodymium, and dysprosium are used in electronics and wind turbines.

———

🔸 Other Strategic Minerals: Significant reserves of beryllium, zirconium, gallium (5th largest global producer), germanium, and cobalt.

🇺🇸US data center growth is running into a hard wall

AI and hyperscaler expansion will push demand past supply through at least 2028.

But the constraint has shifted.

It’s no longer capital.
It’s no longer chips.

⚡️It’s power availability, land access, and grid readiness.

The next phase of winners won’t be defined by ambition, but by infrastructure.

Strategies that ignore physical limits will fail first.

#energy #DataCenter #power

Tech Giants pledge $600 Billion to the AI Buildout

Amazon Google Meta and Microsoft are funding the buildout

Here is who will benefit:

AI COMPUTE (Demand Creation)
$NVDA - AI accelerator platform
$AMD - Second GPU supply hyperscalers need

CUSTOM AI SILICON (Cost Control Layer)
$AVGO - Custom AI + networking silicon
$MRVL - Rack-level silicon + interconnect

MEMORY (AI’s Hidden Bottleneck)
$MU - HBM + DRAM backbone
$SNDK - AI storage infrastructure

MANUFACTURING (If These Stop, AI Stops)
$TSM - Leading-edge chip manufacturing
$ASML - EUV = advanced chips don’t exist without it
$AMAT - Wafer fabrication equipment
$KLAC - Yield + process control

DATA CENTER NERVOUS SYSTEM
$ANET - Switching inside AI clusters
$CRDO - High-speed GPU interconnect

AI INFRASTRUCTURE (AI Becomes A Utility)
$CIFR - AI infra landlord model
$IREN - Power + compute convergence
$NBIS - AI developer / software layer
$CRWV - On-demand GPU capacity

POWER + ELECTRIFICATION
$VRT - Cooling + electrical inside AI data centers
$CEG - Nuclear baseload power
$PWR - Grid + data center electrical buildout
$ETN - Electrical backbone of electrification

ALWAYS-ON AI (Next Phase Power)
$SMR - Scalable nuclear buildout
$OKLO - Local nuclear for AI clusters

Data center cancellations and postponements are surging

- 16 in December 25 vs 1-6 per month in the previous 6 months
- January 26 has already reached 25

Ambitions are meaningless when access to resources is the constraint.

- Newton County, GA: Meta accounts for 10% of water consumption
- By 2030: data centers could consume the equivalent of 10m Americans
- Louisiana: a data center under construction needs 3 new fossil-fueled power plants

Dominion Energy, wants to add 47 GW of data centers to a grid that can handle peak demand of 23 GW... a 50% gap.

Hard assets are the basis of everything if we want growth:

- AI
- Renewables
- Defense capabilities

We need to build the hard-asset infrastructure first. For that reason, hard assets will have to outperform everything.

A historic natural resource bull market is no longer optional... it’s inevitable.

The trade war with China made one reality impossible to ignore: the Western economic model broke itself. By offshoring production for margin expansion, the US traded efficiency for dependency.

China didn’t just take manufacturing: it took control of

- Processing
- Refining
- Downstream dominance.

Whoever controls downstream industries controls upstream supply.

Remove China out of the equation and critical systems collapse: defense manufacturing, AI infrastructure, advanced technology.

US market valuations and its ability to defend itself are just a function of whether China is ready to supply required inputs

The reintroduction of the Monroe Doctrine, which boils down to kicking China, Russia, and Iran out of the Western Hemisphere, will lead to more, not less, export bans.

Regaining independence will reshape policy, force capital back into commodities and downstream industries, and drive a multi-year natural resource bull market.

The age of cheap resources is over.

Precious metals analyst Michael Oliver: #Gold and #silver miners are the cheapest assets in the world.

Gold and silver miner index as a percentage of gold:

- 1984-2008: Average was 25%
- Since 2015: Trading in a tight 4-8% range

In other words, gold and silver miners would need to rise 3× relative to gold just to return to the 1984-2008 average.

The miners will massively outperform the metals.