8 Metals That Can Make You Rich in the Next Decade

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Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller, and today I have my dear friend Louis O'Connor. 

Louis is the founder and CEO at Strategic Metals Invest, a commodities dealer that moves annually over 250 metric tons of strategic rare earth metals all over the world. 

So what does this mean? Well, it means that strategic metals are critical to all nations economic prosperity and military capabilities, and they serve as a backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century.

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[THE GUEST]: Louis O'Connor is the founder and CEO at Strategic Metals Invest

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• 24:37 (Cont.) 8 Metals That Can Make You Rich in the Next Decade

Transcript

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller, and for the past 15 years, I've helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

Ryan Miller  

What if I told you there's a hidden market that controls literally everything, it's not stocks, not crypto, not even real estate. The Hidden market I'm talking about involves eight metals so rare, so critical, that countries are willing to go to war over these eight metals, metals that power your iPhone, your electric car, and every single piece of technology you own right now, there's about a 10 year window where ordinary investors can make extraordinary gains. My guest today, he's a man that moves 250 metric tons of these strategic metals per year, and he's about to reveal the exact 8 metals that could turn a $10,000 investment into a potential fortune. But here's the kicker, this isn't about making this, it is about understanding the next global shift in power. While nations are scrambling, future billionaires are positioned, and in the next 30 minutes, you'll learn exactly why. So if you want to get ahead of the curve, if you want to understand the real chess game happening behind global economics, you cannot miss what's about to come next. Let's dive in. 

Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller, and today I have my dear friend Louis O'Connor. Louis is the founder and CEO at Strategic Metals Invest, a commodities dealer that moves annually over 250 metric tons of strategic rare earth metals all over the world. So what does this mean? Well, it means that strategic metals are critical to all nations economic prosperity and military capabilities, and they serve as a backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century. So, Louis, welcome to the show, man. 

Louis O'Connor  

Ryan, thank you very much, it's good to see you again. Good to be talking with you again, I enjoyed the last chat we had, and you know, I'm a big fan of the show, and it's nice to be communicating across the pond.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, that's right, man, it's great to have you with the stuff that you've done, you've been so impressive to me, the way that you've been able to move such amount of weight of all these precious metals, it's phenomenal. Like people need this, you've opened my eyes always new commodities, and precious metals and rare earth metals are important, but I didn't know it like you know it. So I'm excited to talk about this, my friends, this is going to open your eyes to a side of the economy that you likely haven't heard if you're like me, so this, I'm excited to get into this. So let's jump right in rare earth metals, you guys are moving tons of weight, hundreds of tons every year. How do people when they're entering into this industry and we're talking about the show Making Billions. How do they get started, how do they get early points on the board when dealing in rare earth minerals. 

Louis O'Connor  

Okay, so I'll just point out first, Ryan, so people get the full picture, if you will, like a given the, what lies below the surface, if you will. So the first thing to know about us is that we are, you know, an industry supplier of rare earths. So we buy from producers, and then we sell. We have a vault, with three or four offices in Frankfurt and Germany, where we're Europe based. I'm in Ireland at the moment, but with three offices in Frankfurt, and we've an inventory of over 200, maybe 250 metric tons of rare earths. So on a daily basis, 85% of our business activities are, we're buying and selling metals to manufacturers. However, what we talk about today is, I joke with you before, in the US or in Canada, you guys call it your, your side hustle. So we have a side business, and it's a little bit more than a side business. But, you know, because we have access to industrial grade gallium, germanium, and we can also, we have, we've also got 4000 clients in 74 different countries, we can sell to our side businesses. We invite private investors to safely participate in the supply chain. So I just wanted to point out what, you know, what our primary business is, because that, if we weren't doing that, it wouldn't be safe to trust us or anybody else to buy these metals. So it's, it's a very, sort of a complicated and chain of custody is very important. 

Louis O'Connor  

But just very briefly, so on the industry side we, strategic metals is not an academic term or even a sort of a scientific term, but it's an umbrella term for the, as you said, the raw materials that are critical to all nations, economic prosperity and, increasingly, capabilities. Another way to look at it was, would be that the raw material, the upstream raw materials that ultimately become trillions of dollars in Downstream GDP. So there's about 40 metals, let's say, for example, on the US Geological Survey, there's about 40 that are considered critical, a lot of those are not that rare. So the ones we're going to discuss today are, well, I suppose the characteristics that determine how somebody can profit is, for one is diversification. Is out of that, we've about eight or 10 metals out of that 40 that we deem relevant as physical assets. And the four characteristics they would have is one, when you buy one particular metal, I'll use gallium as an example, it's in semiconductors. It's in addition to modern technology, it's in energy, it's an energy transition metal. So when you buy gallium your diversified in many different industries, aviation, modern technology, energy, transition defense, etc. So you've got diversification right away. Secondly, we focus on, where is there a supply concentration risk? Where is there heavily localized production? I'll use China as an example. China produces about 50% of the world's gallium, but it actually but it's also the largest importer and exporter of gallium. So ultimately, it's responsible for 98% of the refined of the process gallium. So you have a supply concentration risk. All of Europe, all of the US, is dependent or, I should say North America, all of North America is dependent on China. So that's the second factor. The third is which ones are actually the rarest you know, which ones are the least you know available. And then finally, suppose you might call the qualitative approaches, which ones are the most in demand. So that's the four characteristics we look at.

Ryan Miller  

I love it. So, so really simple model, I absolutely love it, but no, no less profound. So from that criteria, of those four do you have any metals that meet that four criteria right now that's obviously quite promising from making a profit? What are those metals that then meet that criteria?

Louis O'Connor  

So there'd be four technology metals, gallium, germanium, indium and rhenium, and also four rare earth elements. The 17 rare earths, but there's only four that we deem relevant. That'd be dysprosium, praseodymium, neodymium and terbium and I'll just go a little step further out of the four technology metals, gallium and germanium they're currently being restricted by China, for sale to the USA. So, you know, since about 2018 the US, China have been in a sort of a trade technology war, at the moment, it's, it's, it's sort of escalating further. So two of those are on a full restriction, and the four rare earths, dysprosium, neodymium, praseodymium and terbium. They're on expert sorry, export restrictions, which means if you're producing those raw materials in China, you must apply for a license. And what that is is the Chinese government gets to have a look at who the consignee is, and they decide if you can export it or not. So that's, that's why we'd recommend and the other two, rhenium and indium are, are just very much in demand technology metals.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. So, so getting into the right metals, there's four criteria. Now, like most investments, you need to hold them for a while, it's, it's an exercise in patience. Some investments require more patience than others, but in the scope of what you're dealing with, how long should people hold and maybe what, what returns are you expecting to see from it? 

Louis O'Connor  

Okay, so we suggest, you know, I suppose the first thing to say is, when people buy metals from us and they own the metals, they physically hold them, it's the same sort of paradigm as owning, you know, gold or silver. And we suggest a sort of a three to five year hold or longer. For example, it's not expected the demand for what we call energy transition metals, the metals needed in electric cars and wind turbines and solar that's not expected to peak, if it does it all, until the 2040s. However, we do suggest at least three to five years now, having said that, I want to add a little caveat to that, which is we do have, from time to time, or quite regularly, price or sort of scarcity driven price increases. So I'll just go into a little bit of detail, detail on that, so people understand so gallium or germanium or terbium, they do not occur naturally in the earth's crust. So there isn't one significant mine that focuses on gallium production, gallium is a byproduct of aluminum mining. Another example is hafnium, it's a byproduct of zirconium mining, so for every 50 tons of zirconium, you only get one ton of hafnium. So what I mean by that as well is, or the other side of that coin, is that if, if there's an increase in demand for any of these metals, there's an inflexibility or inelasticity to supply. So from time to time, and I'm happy to give you some examples if you want, you'll have, we had it with period, or, sorry, with turbulent when we went into lockdown, turbulent up 500% in two years after you went up 250% in about 18 months. And what they were were scarcity driven, price like so if that happens, and that happens, saying within eight months or a year, then, of course, we'd suggest to private investors to sell some of the raw material, or even all of it if they want to it's up to them. So from time to time, we'll make a suggestion, look, this one's up considerably maybe it's a good time to cash out a little bit.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. And would you say one of the price drivers, so in commodities, are typically a price taker, what would you say is a stronger drive performance demand or supply.

Louis O'Connor  

Definitely demand, I mean, I think, I don't think anybody would argue demand is now increasing for technology metals, for, for more people at work, for aviation, nuclear industry, space exploration, energy transition defense. I mean, you name it, I mean, they literally are the backbone of manufacturing in this 21st century. And then if you add on top of that, population increasing, nations emerging more into, you know, into developing into developing world. So just wherever you look, you're looking at demand rising and increasing. 

Ryan Miller  

Got it. Okay, so pay attention to man and how the demand and technology is starting to rise in certain areas. What rare earth metals lie to that? And then you can start to maybe predict some, some press moves. Would you say that's a fair opinion? 

Louis O'Connor  

Yeah, I would indeed. And I would just add that, for example, experts worldwide would say we're heading into a, what they call a super commodity cycle, which we haven't had since the 1970s when Japan, or I suppose, Asia, became, you know, industrialized. And what's going to drive that is artificial intelligence and automation, and these are the raw materials that are behind so, you know, somebody, you know, I mean, I think everybody knows what the next wave is, and just look at the raw materials needed to make that happen.

Ryan Miller  

Okay, now, what about covering your downside risk, maybe there's certain areas that you aren't paying attention to, and you pay the price quite figuratively and literally. What would you say that people who find this fascinating really want to they think this is something they want to do. They want to add it to their portfolio, where do they need to pay attention to avoid maybe making some mistakes that cost them dearly.

Louis O'Connor  

Okay, so the good news is we do a lot of this sort of heavy lifting, if you will, for a private investors, just in a, as a natural evolution. And as I mentioned earlier, we sell 45 to 50 metals to industry and let's, let use rare earths as an example, there's 17 rare earths, but we only offer 4 to private investors, because some of them are not all that rare. Some of them are as common as copper in the ground, so there's no relevance as a physical asset. So the first thing people can be assured is that we will not offer material that is not relevant as a physical asset, meaning, if it doesn't fit that criteria, I mentioned earlier those four characteristics. Now, having said that, and from time to time, we can see where there's going to be plenty in supply. So just to give you an idea, at the moment, we're not suggesting people buy tellurium. We got my change in six months. That might change in a year, but at the moment, we don't see any upside to owning it as a physical asset. So what we do offer or suggest as a safety measure is just diversification. You know, like I said, if the eight metals that I just mentioned, all of those, you know, there's not an industry you're not invested in, if you own those eight metals. You're invested in, you know the materials, Tesla need, Apple need, Ford Motor Company need, BMW need, medical devices need, space technology, aviation. So if one, you know, tapers off, you know, it'll usually be pulled up on the other side. But something that can happen is where you might have substitution and when we spoke to you today, we were talking about Indium, you can only swipe your phone and your mouse because of indium. And maybe somebody might find a better technology that could do that, or a different metal, or softer metal, and in that case, then the demand for indium, you know, would taper off, but luckily, it has other applications. So, so the best suggestion is to buy all 8 we recommend, so you're fully diversified. 

Ryan Miller  

Got it okay? Now, as far as the macro, geopolitical moves that are happening, you see a lot of stuff. I live in Canada, and so we're obviously well aware of the comments around the 51st state. But I think especially me, I live in Alberta, which is very commodities rich, same with Ontario. So we have a lot of commodities here, so we're pretty in tune with that as a nation. And so when, when I heard, hey, we want to make it 51st state, and then you hear a hot mic from our former Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, saying he's not bluffing. And so we're like, okay, wow, this is why. I mean, we get it. We like this country, but why do you like this country and you know, the most answer was the commodities. And so it really turned my gaze through this experience to say, okay, I see what's going on. Some people are giving them a hard time, some people love what President Trump is doing. I'm not American, but I'm near it, and I can see that there's a lot of issues in Taiwan, Canada, Greenland they're talking about, Ukraine, obviously, is a big one that's been going on. Is it fair to say that rare earths and other commodities are really what we were observing. It's the battle to secure more strength in industrial and shore up your supply lines. Is that what we're seeing?

Louis O'Connor  

Yeah, 100% I mean, it's, it's, it's reading between the lines a little bit. It's, you know, it's, it's taking a little bit of a deeper dive. But if you look closely enough, we're all, you know, we're already in what we call Cold War 2.0 and it's not an arms race, it's a semiconductor race. You know, as an example, during World War Two, it was steel, you know, for tanks and stuff that were needed and that's what won the war. And the Cold War, it was basically nuclear power, nuclear capabilities. But today, it's precision, you know, it's, it's precise technology that's needed and so the most important technology in the world today are semiconductors, and that's just militarily. But if you think about it, there's a semi, 12 semiconductors in one smartphone, maybe 13. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's the raw materials that are needed, both for military capabilities and but it's not an easy fix either, Ryan, as you probably gathered. Just because they're there, you know, the average like mining, you know, the US since, has really disappeared since the 1990s. The average time from discovery to being in a product for mine in America is 29 years. So what that tells us, as well as the engineer expert, the engineering expertise is also not there. And I'll just give you a quick summary, we talked about China, right? China's produced a 98 processing 98% of the world's gallium. So as I mentioned earlier, they're a byproduct, so a better word to use when we talk about semiconductors and technology is metallurgy. So these products are they were actually originally waste materials, so we found a use for them. So they have to be extracted, then they have to be separated, and then they have to be re-metallized to 99.995% purity. So that's what makes them sort of complicated and expensive, and China's about a generation ahead of the rest of the world with this technology, China has like 28 maybe 29 universities graduating degrees in metallurgy. So they've been graduating maybe 200 metallurgists a week, every week, for the last 30 years. So that means you've about 400,000 metallurgists in China, in America and North America, maybe you have 400. So it's the situation we're in, we didn't arrive last, yesterday evening, and it'll take a while to move away. But make no mistake, there's a sort of a seismic shift occurring and you know, when President Trump, you know, I mean, he was very open, he, he was very open about saying we value rare earth so much that we'd be willing to use them as leverage to end a war if we can get our hands up. America needs them, everybody needs them and Greenland, same thing and Taiwan is more about the some countries are resource rich, and some are technology after technology. Taiwan has the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing company, which is producing about 82% of the best, most advanced computer chips in your work today.

Ryan Miller  

Okay, now, now, speaking of them, thank you for that, you're spot on. So I think this is a thing like we come on the show talk about hedge funds and debt funds and venture capital and there awesome. But I think this one thing that we're talking about in this interview, I think this one thing is going to define everything, very soon, and it already is. It's maybe not mainstream, but you know that, so if you're paying attention, you can see that this isn't like, how do I make money off a middle sure do that, that's great. We're all for it on this show, but we're really talking about is understanding the shift in powers and where it, geopolitical powers and where the new lines are going to be drawn after the Cold War. Well, who's drawing those lines of power? It's the people that would control all the materials we need to rebuild. And so understanding that, that's going to define investment, it's going to define industry. It's going to define, possibly elections around the world and military activity or lack thereof. So many things are happening, you're opening my eyes. So that being said, with the market. What are you seeing in the market right now? What are some of those moves that you find quite fascinating?

Louis O'Connor  

I mean, you can't really mention rare earths without mentioning China in the same sentence, you really, really can't. I mean, I always look, try to look at the path of progress and you know, if we want to see what's going to happen in the next 10 years, what happened in the last 10 but in this case, let's look back maybe 20-25, years. So 1980 the late, late 1980s just when I just go back a little bit further. First of all, so as I mentioned, these were considered waste materials, really, until the 1960s when we went from black and white TVs to color TVs that we started at, used them for the screens. But then in the 1980s you know, where the dawning of the ad, technology age. At that time, the US was the largest producer of rare earths, 60%, China was producing about 10% and the Premier, if you will, of China, well, the Premier of China at the time is now, is called, considered the architect, the architect of modern China, Deng Xiaoping made a very shrewd statement. He was standing on a rare earth mine. He said, The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths. And that was 1987 and from then till now, China has consistently consolidated. That time there were 1000s of mines in China, and they've just consolidated and consolidated, and now they completely dominate the market. Where will we be in the next 10 years? Is well, you know, even the Saudis, you know, are looking at mining and rare earths. And there's a lot of cooperation beginning like the North America, for some reason, is largely ignored, South America, which is quite rich in the resources. So you're now seeing, or you will see cooperation there, Europe as well. You see Europe cooperating, maybe more with Africa. So where we are right now, today is we in the West, if you will, have fully, fully realized we've got to wean our dependence off China. And the good news is that China has 50% of the world's reserves, so there are reserves elsewhere. The bad news is that we don't have the human expertise, the engineering expertise to, we don't have refineries and stuff like that. So what we'll see over the next 5 or 10 years is a lot of cooperation, a lot of alignment between Australia, the US, Africa, South America, but that will take time and you know also it's, it's, it'll be more expensive than China, right? Sustainability, labor costs and stuff, so either way, I think we're going to see price increases. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, absolutely. And what are you seeing? I know Austria is making some moves to secure their feed stock, they've got some ambitious goals. What are you seeing with Austria?

Louis O'Connor  

Yeah, well, we just sort of picked Austria, actually, just to have a look at one country in Europe, relatively small, 9 million people, right? And if Austria is to meet its planned energy transition goals between now and 2030 also you would need four and a half times the current global production of gallium, using gallium as a case study again. So we not only see that there will be shortages ahead, but there'll be times when there just won't be product available. And that's why what we're doing, and that's one of the reasons we invite private investors, is we want to build the inventory as much as possible. So when those you know days come where, you know, there's a scramble for gallium, or whatever it might be, we will have inventory. You know, there's not many suppliers like us that have a storage facility, our vault in Frankfurt, for example, it's, it's, it was a bunker in World War Two. So it's two levels below ground, one level above, and we've got an atrium tower now, an office and stuff. But not many of our sort of counterparts have inventory or evolved, and we want to keep building that inventory for when those shortages come, and there's no question there will be. I mean, in a way, it's already happened, you know, gallium has been gone up about 50% a year every year, germanium is another example. In fact, I think the US buys most of its germanium from Canada, so that could become a talking point. You know, political, politically and geopolitically.

Ryan Miller  

It's crazy that one country, just as an example, we're not picking on Austria at all, but one country gets real ambitious climate goals. Say, cool. I seriously believe you're trying to do the right thing. Nothing wrong with that. But in order to hit it four and a half times world production, just to satisfy the goals of one country. So it sounds like as and if these goals start to move forward, we're going to be in a position in the world where not only are we going to have constrained supply, we may also have no supply. Would you agree with that? 

Louis O'Connor  

Yes, yes, definitely, definitely. 

Ryan Miller  

So policies need information a lot more and say, okay, what great goal, what's possible? 

Louis O'Connor  

Yes, yes. Yeah, the CEO for MP Mineral, Mountain Pass in California, who, they're the biggest rare earth producer in the US. In fact, it might be the only they were at one once upon a time, before China took over, the biggest in the world. He recently said he made a comment he was on CNBC, and he was asked, what's it going to take, you know, to meet, you know, to meet the demand that's coming. He said, hundreds of more mines, right. Now you know, one mine is, it's billions of investment. It's this huge energy involved, infrastructure involved, is basically, you could almost say it's an impossible task, not to say that the impossible is not possible, but there's a unbelievable amount of decline. And that's why, you know, I'm here today with you, is there's a window of opportunity here for private investors, as long as they can safely enter their supply chain and safely exit. And that's why I'm sort of, you know, I know you picked up on it when we first met as well. It's a very exciting window here, because no, these are the facts like, you know, I mean, if it's my opinion, I'll give my opinion. But the facts are, the demand for these materials is, is, is increasing, and there's just not enough.

Ryan Miller  

Man. So, so I love that. So looking for demand, we're going to see constraint supply, which typically prices rise in that scenario, when there's a shortage, so demand is going to be the primary driver. I love what you said this, this is a small window, but it is a it was a glorious we'll call it the golden window of opportunity that's opening up for investors who may want to do this right and obviously do your homework and talk to professionals like Louis or whoever it is, but really know what you're talking about before you do anything. So with that, with all the geopolitical risk, do you see this as a window that's going to open and shut, like a fluctuation in the market? Or do you see this having some legs where we could have a really long super cycle?

Louis O'Connor  

Yeah, definitely, definitely has legs, and it's actually already begun. People can go and I can recommend them if they want cause price reporting agencies, you know, Asia Metals, Argos Media, Fast Market. So there are price reporting agents where you can look at these predictions. And all I can tell you is, let's say between now and 2, 7, 35 just to begin, that's a 10 year run. Is that the prices, the demand is steadily increasing, and supply is not able to keep up. And so we see the prices increase. But in some cases, it might be the end of 2028. Where did them? You know, when we, let's say when we have infrastructure, more infrastructure for electric cars and wind turbines, you know, stuff like that. So there will be a period that when all that infrastructure was in demand will really go up and the supply will not at all. So those are the periods where we'll, we think there'll be not just bottlenecks, there just won't be unless you've got an inventory. But we believe this year is the beginning of the year of strategic stockpiling, and nation states, corporations will, to the best their ability, try to stockpile for the future. Something that's, that's also so interesting, that's, that's, that might happen is in one metal, it might be 2028 and another might be 2029 but the demand by and large will be just sort of solid and healthy until about the 2040s.

Ryan Miller  

Wow. Okay, so with this thing, it's gonna have some legs to run on your opinion. And are there any medals that maybe if, if somebody asked you, ask it for a friend, of course. But if someone asked you, what should I stay away from right now as far as your opinion on the future, are there any metals that you say, maybe you stay away from those?

Louis O'Connor  

Well, I suppose, um, say, out of the, out of the 8 that we're recommending, gallium, germanium, indium, rhenium and the four rare earths, there's two at the moment that and this is just not my opinion, but according to, you know, in our Frankfurt office, the guys who are buying this metal for the last 25-30 years. The price for neodymium and praseodymium at the moment are either at cost or maybe even a bit below cost. And the reason for that is the, you know, prices in China, you know, in the practically, we're dropping for 24 months, 26 months. That has stopped and these metals are starting to go up in value again, just in the last month, so they been going down 2022, 2023, 2024. What it was is some of them had like terbium, went up 500% during COVID and why that was, was we went into lockdown, needed in semiconductors. So it was a massive increase in demand for home computers and scanners, and everybody was going to work from home, so the demand increased, but that the supply couldn't keep up with it. So the, you know, price just kept going up, so that has corrected itself, Hafnium was another example of that. So this will happen from time to time, but right now, out of that 8, there's 2 that we think are this really at cost or below cost, but having said that as well, Ryan, there's gallium in germanium, which gallium is up 50% a year for the last five years. But gallium, at the moment, is on restriction to the US, so, you know, we couldn't really not mention that as well. 

Ryan Miller  

I mean, this has been abs, you've blown me away, man, this is phenomenal. I'm locked in on the metals market as more, I used to just think, yeah, okay, supply, demand. Your price taker, it's commodity, the stuff you've learned in grad school. But really what you're saying, and this has opened up, my understanding, is to say, no, understanding what goes on with metals helps you understand what's going to go on with the rest of the world. And there's a lot of things that are happening right restrictions, and so you're starting to see how countries are playing certain games and seismic shifts in power, and you can start to see it reasonably predict it, I would say, just from my opinion, through the metal circuit. So with all of that, this has been absolutely brilliant. Do you have maybe one or two pieces of advice that would give someone an unfair advantage in this industry? What would you say? 

Louis O'Connor  

I think it would be one of those scarcity driven price increases that I mentioned, I gave an example of Terbium. It also happened with hafnium. So it can be, it can be a geopolitical situation. It can be just a shift in demand, you know, just say, in the last 10 years. Some other examples, well, going back maybe a little over 10 years, in 2012 I think there was a dispute between China and Japan. The Japanese detained the trawler of a fishing boat, and in retaliation, the Chinese restricted the export of railroad, so that was geopolitical. It was a standoff. But prices, you know, obviously went up quite a lot in the three to five months, Japan was just not getting any you know. And then we had COVID, you know, demand increased. And then when we bounced back from COVID, and the likes of Boeing and Airbus started to order airplanes again. We had a demand increase for hashing, which is a super alloy, and jet engines, nuclear reactors and rocket engines. So these are the things you can see, like, what's you know, for example, we're speaking today. Yesterday, President Trump announced an additional 35% tariffs on Chinese. Interestingly, he didn't include the metals or semiconductors, so that might come yet. But I think one of the reasons he didn't is because China could retaliate very quickly and say, okay, well, we won't export them to the us completely. Now that is that would you know that would threaten the entire US economy. There's not a everything from microwaves to tractors to iPhone, everything has a semiconductor, if more than one, usually. So, so, yeah, what's, what's happening geopolitically? Watch technology. What's the next big thing? What are the raw materials needed for that? And you touched on something there as well, in the last question, which is, as you said, people tend to know about metals, right? I mean, they do know. But what we're talking about here are certain, what we call spice metals, maybe might be a great word with their there is sort of a sub, a subset of metals that are not, they don't occur naturally, they're not abundantly available. They're only in, you know, as we said at the very, very beginning, the criteria we use to make them relevant as a physical asset is, where is there heavy localized production? You know, where, which ones are actually the rarest metals, which ones are actually the most in demand, and what are they needed for? And then also the diversification so, so it's, it's out of that 40-50 metals that are deemed critical, there's about 20% of them that are really relevant as a physical asset.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. And would you recommend that, like, is this fairly easy for people to go out and do it on their own, or should they maybe do these deals with the trained professional, where do you stand on that?

Louis O'Connor  

Well, if you're well, we're talking about investors, but like, you know, you could go on to eBay and Amazon and buy a, you know, you could, as a hobbyist, sure, you could buy metals. But no, no, absolutely, 100% it's a very dangerous sort of a journey to go alone, I wouldn't go alone. You definitely have to be working with an industry expert supplier, for example. I mean, I joked with you when we first met that, if this was, if I was just some Irish guy in temporary, you know, with a sales and marketing business, and a good idea to be red flags everywhere, like, you know. Because if I was to say to you, oh, Ryan, we're going to buy gallium in China, and we're going to store it here in Tipperary or in Canada, and then we sell it to the US Department of Defense, I mean, just no way. Number one, how do we know that what we're buying, for example, as an industry supplier, we know what Boeing needs, you know what purity levels I'm talking about. We know what Apple computers need, so we know the industry standards, first of all. And then the other thing is liquidation, I mean, the only end buyer for these products are manufacturers. And believe you me, no matter how charming we are, we call Apple or Boeing and say, hey, yeah, we've got some gallium here temporarily, you know, they're not going to buy it from us, you know, so don't go it alone you have to go professionally. But like, what we do is we invite private investors to safely enter the supply chain and safely exit and that's really what you need to be doing. You need a partner who's in the industry, not maybe trying to be in the industry. Have to, and also have to bonafides to prove it like we're a tier one supplier, to Siemens and, you know, company, you know, big, big companies like that, which means they buy metals office every month, and have done for many, many years. So you know and we're happy to sort of open the books a bit for people to see, you know who our clients are and stuff as well. 

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. So before we wrap things up, is there anything else you'd like to say ways people can reach out to if they want to learn more, anything at all?

Louis O'Connor  

Yeah. I mean, definitely, I'd love if somebody wants to learn or investigate a bit further with the due diligence pack. And they could email me directly and mention, you know, Ryan Miller, so it's Louis, louis@strategicmetalsinvest.com or they could just go to the website Strategic Metals Invest and download the brochure and, you know, take it from there.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. So just to wrap things up, remember to understand that rare earths have a high, very strong pricing thing, very strong pricing profile with it, so when prices go up, people will still pay, leaving strong price performance. The second one, don't do deals privately. If you really want to take this serious, obvious, sure that's not what we're talking about, we're talking you want to do funds, you want to launch a really good business that puts you at the heart of a lot of materials that countries need, maybe work with someone and really understand how this works. You do these things. You too will be well in your way, your pursuit of Making Billions. 

Ryan Miller  

Wow, what a show, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better, and make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry, focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of Making Billions.