Over the coming year, the US and China will come to cross-purposes over the global rare earths supply chain. For decades now, rare earths have been essential to the world’s digital economy, and they will only become more important going forward.
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New trading tool for USAR bullsThe importance of rare earths is running across the bent toward economic protectionism. China has long been the world’s leading source of rare earth minerals, and the Chinese government last year cut its rare earth export permissions from a 5,500 to 6,500 ton-per-month range down to just 1,300 tons per month. And next January, the US military has announced that it will implement a ban on Chinese rare earths from every stage of the US defense supply chain.
In practical terms, this means that the US is headed toward a ‘de-China’ thesis on an economically essential supply chain. As this reshoring trend gains steam, the logical winners are going to be US-based rare earth suppliers.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives is placing that bet. He’s looking at two US rare earth stocks, tagging them as potentially strong investments. Using the TipRanks platform, we’ve looked up the details on Ives’s picks; here is a closer look.
MP Materials (MP)
We’ll start by looking at the only US-based rare earths company that operates across the full supply chain for these vital elements – from the initial mining to the processing to the advanced metallization and magnet manufacturing that puts rare earths into the economy. MP Materials is based in Nevada, a state with a long history in the mining industry, and its chief asset is the Mountain Pass mine in California, one of the world’s richest deposits of rare earths.
Mountain Pass, located in San Bernardino County at an elevation of more than 4,700 feet, operated for some 75 years, but was idled in 2015. MP Materials was founded in 2017 with the explicit goal of restarting production and reviving the mine as a chief source of rare earths in the global market. Today, MP Materials produces more than 10% of the world’s supply of rare earth metals.
The mine itself is a major open-pit operation, more than 2,500 feet by 3,000 feet in dimensions, some 600 feet deep, and holding 1.9 million metric tons of rare earth oxides. This is enough to support several decades of American rare earth production, and, importantly, the mine’s ore is known to be high-grade, at 6% total rare earth oxides over the life of the mine.
Along with its mining operations, MP Materials is also a major producer of neodymium permanent magnets and associated products. This magnet technology, developed in 1982, is essential to modern electric motors, and MP Materials has facilities to produce neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets, as magnetic blocks and as alloy flakes. Rare earth magnets are vital in the electric vehicle, robotics, electronics, and defense/aerospace industries.
For Daniel Ives, writing up the Wedbush view on this rare earth stock, the key points are its size and position as the leading US producer. He writes of the company, “MP Materials is the only fully integrated rare earth producer in the United States, owning and operating the Mountain Pass Mine in California… Mountain Pass is one of only four mines supplying 80% of the world’s rare earths and the only one on US soil, making it nearly irreplaceable in our view. It is the lowest-cost producer of rare earth concentrate outside of China, underpinned by the highest-grade bastnaesite deposit in the Western world. As rare earth supply chain independence has moved to the top of the US national security agenda amid escalating tensions with China, which controls approximately 60% of global mining and 90% of downstream processing and magnet manufacturing, MP has emerged as America’s designated rare earth national champion.”
Following from that stance, Ives rates the stock as an Outperform (Buy), with a $90 price target to suggest a gain of 37% on the one-year horizon. (To watch Ives’ track record, click here)
All ten of the recent analyst reviews here are positive, giving MP a unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating on the Street. The shares are priced at $65.76, and the $78 average target price implies a 19% one-year upside. (See MP stock forecast)
USA Rare Earth (USAR)
The second stock on our Ives-backed list is USA Rare Earth, a company aiming to expand US production of these vital ores and to become an important producer in its own right. The company is based in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and is working to develop an independent supply chain for rare earth elements, oxides, metals, and magnets.
USA Rare Earth was founded in 2019 and entered the public trading markets just in March of last year. The firm’s switch to public status was made through a SPAC transaction with Inflection Point Acquisition Corporation II that closed on March 13 and saw the USAR ticker debut on Wall Street the next day. The business combination brought some $50 million in investment money to the company.
While new to the rare earth industry, USA Rare Earth is already planning an ambitious ‘value chain,’ with mining and processing ops in Texas, research and development in Colorado, and permanent magnet manufacturing in Oklahoma. In addition, the company will produce metals, alloys, and strip cast overseas in the UK and France. USA Rare Earth is designing this integrated supply chain, with its anchor on American soil, specifically to bypass Chinese rare earth metal sourcing. We should note that, on April 15, the company announced its first commercial-grade production of 99% to 99.5% pure yttrium metal at its UK facility.
This company is not yet generating a regular revenue stream or income and reported an operating loss of $59.5 million in 2025. However, it also reported ending that calendar year with $359.9 million in cash and other liquid assets. Importantly, the firm had no significant debt at the end of last year.
Ives, in his summary of this stock for Wedbush, notes several points as supporting factors for investors to consider. Laying out the case, he says, “USA Rare Earth is building a fully integrated heavy rare earth mine-to-magnet platform spanning the Round Top deposit in West Texas, the largest Heavy Rare Earth Element (HREE)-dominant deposit in North America, a commercial-scale samarium cobalt and heavy rare earth metal producer outside China, and a commissioned magnet manufacturing facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma with first commercial NdFeB shipments beginning this quarter… Round Top carries ~72% heavy rare earth oxide distribution within its total rare earth oxide content, effectively unique among deposits of this scale outside China, positioning USAR to address the segment of the rare earth market under the most acute supply chain pressure following China’s April 2025 export controls.”
These comments support the top-rated analyst’s Outperform (i.e., Buy) rating, while his price target here, $29, points to a one-year gain of 27%.
Overall, this stock gets a Strong Buy consensus rating—and as with MP above, this is a unanimous position, based on USAR’s 6 recent positive reviews. The shares are priced at $22.58, and their $34.20 average target price implies a potential one-year upside of 50%. (See USAR stock forecast)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.