Investopedia: Molycorp Setting Up A Second Chance

Almost every stock will give the patient investor a second chance, and now may be that time for investors looking to get exposure to the rare earth metal space. Severe Chinese export controls have led to demand destruction (mostly through accelerated substitution and recycling) and prices have plunged. While a tough pricing environment does no favors to Molycorp (NYSE:MCP), the quality of this American miner merits a second look at today's prices.

Few Surprises to Close the Year  
For all of the rare earth metal pricing drama, Molycorp's fourth quarter went more or less as expected. Revenue dropped 4% sequentially as strong volume growth (237% in cerium products) was offset by a nearly 50% quarter-to-quarter price cut.

Read the complete article here:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/Molycorp-Setting-Up-A-Second-Chance-MCP-REE-RIO-BHP0228.aspx

Seeking Alpha: China's Rare Earth Policy Will Ultimately Fail (And What That Means For Metal Miners)

Let's not mince words – China's policy of choking off the world's access to rare earth metals will ultimately fail.

Although China has clearly created a tizzy in the markets because of its policy to slowly strangle its export quotas of rare earth metals, it would be more surprising if this move does not go down in the books alongside the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the silver market and other market-cornering maneuvers. Maybe this is really not all that unexpected; after all, China is not necessarily up to date on all of the details about how free markets operate.

The Problem
As has been reported many times in many places, China happens to sit on top of a very large percentage of the world's rare earth elements. Actually, that's not really the story. China reportedly holds about 37% of the world's reserves but is responsible for about 97% of the world's supply because the central government kept supporting rare earth producers at a time when Western mining companies shut down their rare earth operations because of low prices.

Please click this link for the full piece:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/256890-china-s-rare-earth-policy-will-ultimately-fail-and-that-means-for-metal-miners?source=mc_all

5 Could-Be Bubbles Waiting To Burst

One of the oldest sayings of Wall Street (and one that happens to be true!) is that "there is always a bull market somewhere." In other words, no matter how bad one segment of the market may be performing, there is almost always some unrelated asset that is doing well at the same time. Taking that to its logical extreme, if there is always a bull market somewhere, there are almost always a few potential bubbles emerging. So which markets look like they have heated up to the melting point? (For more, check out The Myth About Market Bubbles.)

1. Bonds
To a lot of people, the current yield on government bonds just makes no sense. These people see the federal budget deficit, the huge debt burden and the risk of a stagflation-type environment of low growth and high inflation, and cannot understand how investors could be piling into bonds. Moreover, there is a strong sense that these artificially low rates are just a prelude to a withering bout of inflation that will smack fixed-income instruments hard.

For better or worse, there are other dynamics at work in the bond market. For starters, banks can make a solid "carry trade" on government bonds - banks take their ultra-low cost deposits and invest them in higher-yielding government securities. 


Click below for the full piece:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2010/5-Could-Be-Bubbles-Waiting-To-Burst-CRM-VMW-CTXS-LOGM1020.aspx