Project Vault

Project Vault

We mentioned it briefly yesterday and it deserves more attention today — the critical-minerals stockpile the Trump administration has in the works.

Project Vault, it’s called. The seed money comes in the form of a taxpayer-backed loan from the U.S. government’s Export-Import Bank — plus another $1.67 billion from the private sector.

“The model mirrors the country’s emergency oil reserve,” says the Mining.com site, “but focuses instead on materials such as gallium and cobalt used in products ranging from smartphones to jet engines.

“The project spans the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors and underscores Trump’s broader push to rewire U.S. supply chains away from China, the world’s dominant producer and processor of critical minerals.

“More than a dozen companies have reportedly signed on, including General Motors Co., Stellantis NV, Boeing Co., Corning Inc., GE Vernova Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Commodities traders Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. will handle purchases to fill the stockpile.”

Vault’s ambitious scope is exemplified by the two CEOs who were on hand for yesterday’s announcement at the White House — GM’s Mary Barra and mining billionaire Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines.

The U.S. government already has a national stockpile for military purposes; this one, we’re told, is for civilian applications.

The mere appearance of the words “critical minerals” in a headline tends to give a boost to the rare-earth names — and this week is no exception.

As mentioned here yesterday, shares of USA Rare Earth Inc. (USAR) soared when Bloomberg broke the story ahead of the White House event.

USAR already got a lift last week when the Commerce Department took a 10% stake in the company — one of many equity stakes the U.S. government has taken in private firms during the Trump 47 administration.

Long before any of these headlines broke, however, the diverse analysts at Paradigm Press saw USAR’s potential.

Macro maven Jim Rickards, AI authority James Altucher and trading pro Enrique Abeyta — they have vastly differing approaches to the recommendations they issue their readers.

But they were “all in” about USAR during a livestream event on Aug. 7, 2025. As such, we called it the “All-In Summit.”

USAR shares soared from around $14 at the time of that recommendation well past $40 — a 191% gain, to be precise. At the very peak in mid-October, Paradigm Mastermind Group readers were urged to sell half their position and let the rest ride. After this week’s bounce, USAR trades near $26.

Of course, readers are curious when the next all-in recommendation is coming.

But as we said here last week, it’s not often these three guys are on the same page. And the last thing the Paradigm leadership team wants to do is force agreement where agreement doesn’t really exist just so we can sell more subscriptions.

(Would we sell more subscriptions by doing so? Yes. Would we have satisfied long-term customers who’d renew those subscriptions? Probably not.)

And yet… in the same way all three of them anticipated developments from Washington that would benefit USAR big-time… they now see an effort coming together that’s far more ambitious than Project Vault.

They’re all hearing the same rumblings from their sources. Two of the world’s most powerful men — Donald Trump and Elon Musk — are in on it. And so is the world’s most valuable company, Nvidia.

There’s no working name for it yet — so for the time being we’re calling it Project Trinity.

Jim, James and Enrique have identified the one company they believe will benefit the most from this initiative. This single investment could be the key to locking in a potential 2,566% return over the next few weeks.

If you’re a current member of the Paradigm Mastermind Group, watch your inbox for the recommendation Thursday afternoon.

Gold-Silver Rebound

The rebound in precious metals today is a sight to behold.

After a Sunday-night plunge to nearly $4,400, gold is now $70 away from reclaiming the $5,000 level — which, we’ll remind you, marked a record high last week before the dizzying run-up to $5,600.

Silver, meanwhile, is up a wild 11.4% on the day to $88.10.

During the big sell-off on Friday, we mentioned in real-time that the mainstream had latched onto a handy explanation — Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair. (Supposedly he’s going to be an inflation hawk, resistant to Trump’s entreaties for lower interest rates.)

We pooh-poohed the mainstream claptrap: The metals had run up too far, too fast. A correction was coming sooner or later. If Kevin Warsh weren’t available for the mainstream to point to, it would have been something else. As our Enrique Abeyta would remind you, Warsh wasn’t the reason for the sell-off, but it was the excuse.

“The real reasons for the gold and silver price plunge had to do with hedge fund traders taking profits, automated momentum trading, stop-loss algorithms, trend following and some panic,” affirms Jim Rickards.

• Profit-taking: “Hedge fund traders don’t really care about gold as money. For them, it’s just another commodity like coffee, soybeans or lumber,” says Jim. “Imagine a hedge fund trader who bought gold on Dec. 31, 2025, at $4,340 per ounce using five-to-one leverage. With gold at $5,355 on Jan. 29, the unleveraged profit was 23%, but the leveraged profit was 117%! Time to cash out and take your money off the table

• Automation: “Once some traders start to cash out and the price starts to go down, computers tell others to do the same. They follow suit and the price goes down more

• Stop-loss algorithms: “At that point, the stop-loss algos kick in. Traders preset a maximum loss, and when that threshold is hit, the computers automatically close out their position. That drives prices even lower. At this point, longs are getting margin calls on the futures exchange (or from OTC dealers like Goldman Sachs) and they sell their positions for cash to settle up with the dealers. Selling begets selling.”

At that point, “trend-following traders jump on board. Panic selling from all sides is not far behind.”

Looking ahead, Jim says all the factors that sent gold to $5,000 will in time send it to $10,000 — starting with the steady purchases by central banks around the world and mining output that’s been flat for the last six years.

“Don’t panic,” he concludes. “If you have not invested in gold yet, or if your allocation is small, it’s not too late to invest. The drawdown last Friday offers a better entry point today. The biggest gains are still ahead and will happen sooner rather than later. The time to invest is now.”

SpaceXAI

Last week’s hot rumor is this week’s confirmed news.

“SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth,” Elon Musk announced yesterday.

Paradigm tech-inevesting pro Ray Blanco heard the rumors all day Thursday at the SpaceCom event in Orlando — and tipped off readers via the Paradigm Press mobile app.

Musk’s rationale: The merger will make it easier to pursue his goal of orbiting data centers — with 24/7 solar power that doesn’t compete with homeowners and businesses for scarce electricity back on Earth.

Depending on who you believe, the combined company is worth about $1.25 trillion. There’s no way to know for sure, given that neither entity was publicly traded; plans for a SpaceX IPO are still supposed to be on track for later this year.

(Or maybe Musk will fold everything under Tesla — as colleague Davis Wilson speculated last month.)

What the broad stock market gained yesterday, it’s losing today.

As we write the S&P 500 is down more than a half percent to 6,934. While the index poked its nose over 7,000 last week it hasn’t been able to close over that level. The Nasdaq’s losses are steeper, the Dow’s narrower. Walmart just surpassed a $1 trillion valuation, rarefied air usually occupied by tech-adjacent companies.

Elsewhere, crude is consolidating just under $63. Crypto’s woes are not over — Bitcoin now under $77,000 and Ethereum at $2,250.

Epstein

There’s not much we can say about the new Jeffrey Epstein revelations that others haven’t already, except…

The hits keep coming for Peter Mandelson, the longtime British politico who had to resign as ambassador to the United States last fall because of his relationship with Epstein.

Today brings word that he’s now giving up his position in the House of Lords. Really, this is egregious…

“For all the newfound insistence that Epstein files are devoid of major revelations, they sure are destroying the reputation and standing of a lot of very powerful people,” observes the journalist and civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald.

On this side of the pond, there’s former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers — who “paused” his public appearances last November after his correspondence with Epstein was made public.

“A key revelation,” Greenwald continues on X, “is how Epstein's known offenses were irrelevant for his standing among global elites.”

Word. And there’s a different sort of impunity at work, too…

Comic Relief

OK, we’re a day late, but…