Critical Minerals Ministerial
Beyond “Critical Minerals”
On the heels of announcing a critical-minerals stockpile Monday… the Trump administration is convening a critical-minerals summit today.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is joined by Vice President Vance and delegates from over 50 countries for an event called the Critical Minerals Ministerial.
Events like these are not where big decisions get made. They are where governments telegraph their intentions. As the State Department announcement puts it, “This historic gathering will create momentum for collaboration to secure these critical components vital to technological innovation, economic strength and national security.”
The meeting comes “at a time when China has shown it can leverage its dominance in the field,” adds the Financial Times — particularly in the realm of rare earth elements.
Rare earth minerals are used across a range of critical industries including autos, electronics, defense and energy. China dominates the refining and supply of the group of 17 metallic elements. The minerals consultancy Project Blue estimates that China currently controls 66% of the global mined supply and 88% of the refined materials.
Last year China exploited this dominance by imposing restrictions on the exports of some rare earths, raising trade tensions with the U.S. The Trump administration has since sought to support domestic suppliers, including by acquiring a stake in Nevada-based MP Materials, and diversify sources of certain metals to reduce dependency on China.
In China, the summit is the top business story on CGTN, the English-language state broadcaster. Note the “cutline” with the view from Beijing…
To be sure, it’s not all about rare earths. The U.S. critical-mineral stockpile announced earlier this week is likely to include everything from gallium to cobalt to lithium — essential for industries as diverse as automobiles, aerospace and energy.
The U.S. government taking equity stakes in companies was mostly a 2025 story.
The headline companies included MP Materials, Intel, U.S. Steel… and in early 2026, USA Rare Earth.
Paradigm Press readers have fared very well as our editors had the foresight to anticipate both the policy and the potential beneficiaries of that policy.
Several of our publications recommended MP Materials, or options on MP Materials. Altucher’s True Alpha readers benefited the most, with 918% gains on MP call options.
Several of our publications also recommended USA Rare Earth — notably the Paradigm Mastermind Group, a showcase where several of our editors can unveil their most cutting-edge ideas.
In fact, USAR was the focus of a one-of-a-kind event we hosted five months ago called the “All-In Summit.”
It’s a rare moment indeed when macro maven Jim Rickards, AI authority James Altucher and trading pro Enrique Abeyta are “all in” on a single buy recommendation — and not just any buy, but a screaming buy. Their consensus on USAR delivered 191% gains in a little over two months.
As it happens, they’ve reached consensus again.
As before, action in Washington, D.C. is central to the story. And this time the opportunity could prove to be even more lucrative. (The potential upside is as much as 2,166% in the coming weeks.)
This initiative brings President Trump back together with Elon Musk… with essential input from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
If you’re a current Paradigm Mastermind Group subscriber, you’ll get the scoop on this new “All In” recommendation tomorrow afternoon. Watch your inbox.
Overreaction Much?
Software stocks are getting smoked — so much so they’re starting to look like a buy.
Yesterday the AI startup Anthropic announced it’s adding a set of legal tools to its assistant called Cowork. If the tools live up to their promise, much routine legal research and drafting can be handled by AI.
The news crushed the share prices of companies that provide legal software and/or databases — Thomson Reuters, LegalZoom, the London Stock Exchange all fell 12% or more. Then the selling spread to software stocks in general — the Salseforces, ServiceNows and Intuits of the world.
And that proved to be a drag on the market overall — the Nasdaq ending yesterday down 1.4% and the S&P 500 down 0.8%.
The selling sent the S&P 500 Software Sector ETF (IGV) down so hard, its relative strength index tumbled beneath 20.
As you might be aware, RSI can be a valuable tool: Readings over 70 suggest an asset is overbought and due for a reset. Readings under 30 suggest it’s oversold and primed for a rebound.
So for IGV’s RSI to sink below 20? “This has happened only two times in the 25-year history of the ETF,” says trading pro Enrique Abeyta. “Both times it was higher by double digits in 90 days.
“We think this particular sell-off makes no sense and would be aggressively buying high-quality software stocks right now.”
[Editor’s note: Enrique originally shared this tidbit on the Daily Feed section of the Paradigm Press mobile app — where all day our editors are peppering readers with instant insights like these.
The app is also your one-stop shopping source for the buy and sell recommendations of all your paid publications. No more sifting through email to find the most essential info! Download here.]
“I'm looking for signs of capitulation today in some of these tech wrecks,” Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk readers.
“This software sell-off is getting a little ridiculous. I'm not saying that these stocks should magically zip back to their highs. But we should see if we can get some sign of an oversold bounce here.”
In the meantime, however, the software sell-off has dragged down the S&P 500 another half-percent on the day — under 6,900 now. The Nasdaq is off another 1.5%. But the Dow is in the green, up over a half percent.
Bitcoin broke to 52-week lows in the last 24 hours, sitting now a little over $73,000. Ethereum is holding the line on $2,100 for the moment.
Crude is hanging in there at $63.51, smack in the middle of its trading range the last week or so. We’ll cover precious metals separately in Bullet No. 3.
Now that the latest “partial government shutdown” is over, the Labor Department says the January jobs report will be five days late.
Originally it was supposed to come out on Friday; now it won’t be till next Wednesday. In the meantime, the payroll firm ADP says private employers added 22,000 jobs in January. That’s way less than the typical Wall Street economist was expecting. Worse, the growth came only in one category, “education and health services.”
Oh, about the shutdown: Congress passed and the president signed a bill funding most of the government through Sept. 30 this year — except Homeland Security. That’s still pending an agreement on how ICE agents are to conduct themselves going forward.
Curiously the bill includes $5 billion in taxpayer aid for refugees who aren’t in the country legally — and yet, all but one Republican voted “yea.”
The one Republican was Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, who introduced an amendment stripping that funding — only to be shot down by House Republican leadership, presumably on orders from the White House. Go figure…
Silver Crash: Now It Can Be Told
Another day, another round of gyrations in the precious metals.
Gold was within sight of $5,100 overnight but at last check it’s clinging to $4,900. Silver surpassed $90 this morning but now it’s barely over $85.
When it comes to silver, “the $90–100 zone now represents a massive wall of resistance, not because of any technical chart pattern, but because that's where thousands of retail traders are trapped in losing positions, waiting for any opportunity to exit at something close to breakeven.
“Every rally toward those levels will be met with heavy supply.”
So writes colleague Nick Riso. Nick is one of these incredibly smart behind-the-scenes guys we’ve got at Paradigm that most of the time you never hear about. His knowledge of the internal plumbing of the options markets is second to none.
And make no mistake, he says it’s the options trade that took down silver last Friday from $121 at its peak to $73 at its trough.
“Every crisis has a moment where the machinery breaks down completely,” he writes — “where whatever thin veneer of order had been maintained simply vanishes. For silver on Jan. 30, that moment arrived at 12:55 PM.”
You can read the entire blow-by-blow, before and after that moment, here. Yes, it’s long. But it’s thoroughly digestible and totally worth your time.
Nick also takes a wrecking ball to the conventional wisdom about how the appointment of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair figures into the story. It is not the mainstream narrative about how Warsh is an inflation hawk. Rather it’s something else. Again, go read.
Comic Relief
Whoever came up with this nailed all the buzzwords and gobbledygook. Like, perfectly. If you’re ever on LinkedIn, you’ll recognize it immediately…
Why We Do What We Do
“You guys have been delivering value to me for a while and I want to share my gratitude for allowing me to sign up,” says a reader who reminds us why we do what we do here.
“You guys have consistently provided emails and text updates and I am feeling like I am making progress in my personal life because of the endless value that has been provided. So many people should listen to this but as you know not everybody is on the same page so we gotta do what we can with what we got.
“I'm excited for the summit coming up and I look forward to hearing from you guys then.”
Dave responds: We’ve stepped up our game around here in recent months when it comes to making sure our paid publications keep readers posted about all of the open recommendations. We’re heartened that you’ve noticed.
And we have more improvements in the works. Stay tuned!
