Three names sit inside the reshoring buildout, and the market still models each one as a mature industrial. One plates the boards that every AI server rack ships on.

Another feeds lithium cathodes while its legacy business funds the transition, and the third pays you a covered double-digit yield to own base-load power with a critical minerals option on top.

PENTAGON AI BACKBONE

While investors chase the biggest AI names, one Texas tech company is quietly building infrastructure for Grok, Nvidia’s AI factories, and major government projects.

The company reportedly has a $51 billion backlog, making it one of the most heavily booked AI infrastructure plays in the market.

Louis Navellier says he hasn’t been this excited about a stock since Nvidia in 2005—and he’s revealing the name and ticker free.

Brazil is now the country the Pentagon is dialing when China tightens the export screws.

Serra Verde, one of the few operating heavy rare earth mines outside China, is being acquired for roughly $2.8 billion. That comes three months after the US Department of Commerce committed up to $1.6 billion to USA Rare Earth (NASDAQ: USAR) and took over 16 million shares as part of the deal.

Add in the Pentagon's $1.95 billion package with Sila Technologies, Niron Magnetics, and Sunrise Energy Metals announced August 13, and you're looking at roughly $6 billion in state-directed capital deployed in a single quarter. Treat that $6 billion as the signal for where to hunt next in the rare earth supply chain.

Context matters here. Ex-China NdPr prices just slipped below $95/kg CIF Europe and North America, well beneath the $110/kg floor MP Materials (NYSE: MP) locked in with the Department of Defense. Meanwhile Japan is publicly struggling to source rare earths for EV motors and chip tools, burning through inventory as Chinese restrictions bite. Your read on MP hinges on whether that $110/kg DoD floor holds as the spread widens.

You're watching a two-track market form in real time. Chinese-origin material trades at oversupplied spot prices. Ex-China material trades against government price floors and offtake guarantees. Those are not going to converge.

Your takeaway: Buy the downstream. Miners without a US government offtake will get crushed on price. The names that turn raw oxide into magnets, cathodes, and plated circuits capture the reshoring premium instead of fighting the Chinese spot market.

LME copper has punched above $14,000 per tonne, with cash settling near $14,220. Convert that to something useful and you get about $6.45 per pound on the LME, with COMEX futures nearer $6.60.

Sprott called it a supply squeeze, not a demand surprise. ING flagged the cash-3-month spread as "unusually large," which is trader-speak for a physical shortage. Commerzbank pointed to falling LME stocks compounded by US tariff pre-buying under the Section 232 copper regime that took effect in June, so watch that cash-3-month spread as your shortage gauge.

Here's the number you should burn into memory: CRU estimates 2.5 million tonnes of uncommitted mine supply is required by 2030 just to keep the market balanced. The gap could widen to 10 million tonnes under a bull data center scenario. BHP thinks its own share of global electricity consumption goes from 2% today to 9% by the early 2030s. That is a structural gap.

Westpac's bull case has copper end-year at $13,500/t ($6.12/lb). We're already above that.

Your takeaway: Copper's rally stopped being a Chinese-stimulus story. Grid buildout, data centers, depleted ore grades and tariff walls are driving it now, all at once. You want exposure to anything that touches wire, transformers, or cathode.

NOAA just moved on the first-ever US commercial deep-sea mineral recovery application, prepping an Environmental Impact Statement for The Metals Company's "USA-B" exploration license. Days later, environmental groups sued the administration over the planned lease off American Samoa. Track the EIS timeline and that lawsuit if you follow TMC.

The lawsuit is a speed bump, not a stop sign. The White House has made clear it wants US-flagged deep-sea capacity operational this decade, and the fact that NOAA is even running a consolidated exploration-to-recovery process tells you where policy is headed. Six African nations backing a precautionary pause at the ISA changes nothing about the US track, because Washington never ratified UNCLOS to begin with.

Pacific policy analysts have warned that commercial deep-sea mining in the region "could begin in months without policy guardrails." Read that as: the regulatory brakes exist only where governments choose to apply them, and the current US government isn't choosing to. For you, that means the "months" clock is already running.

Your takeaway: The seabed nodule story is speculative on production but structural on policy. Every EIS filed, and every lease advanced widens the moat for the incumbents already sitting on licenses. Watch the calendar, not the courtroom.

AFTER AI HYPE

Alexander Green believes the biggest AI opportunity may come after the current hype cycle breaks.

In a private presentation, he explains why he expects many popular AI stocks to struggle and reveals what he believes could become the #1 investment of the next decade.

Element Solutions (NYSE: ESI)

Every server rack, EV inverter, and 5G antenna gets built on printed circuit boards, and those boards get plated with chemistry that Element Solutions sells at scale. You're looking at an $8B+ specialty chemicals name with dominant share in electronics plating, semiconductor packaging materials, and industrial surface treatment.

The AI capex cycle is a direct tailwind: more advanced packaging means more of ESI's high-margin electronics chemistry per board. Copper prices ripping through $14,200/t doesn't hurt either, because their electroless copper plating business scales with the metal it deposits.

Free cash flow generation is strong, buybacks are ongoing, and the market still prices this like a cyclical chemicals name rather than a semiconductor supplier. That's the mismatch you want to own.

Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT)

Cabot is the largest carbon black producer in the world, and carbon black has become a critical conductive additive in lithium-ion cathodes. Its Battery Materials segment is growing double-digit percentages while the legacy tire reinforcement business throws off cash to fund the expansion.

You're looking at a $4.4B name with a real EV supply chain hook and a mature industrial base funding the transition. Cabot also has fumed silica and specialty carbons feeding into semiconductor CMP slurries. Analysts keep modeling this as a mature industrial.

The actual product mix says specialty materials with battery leverage. That valuation gap closes the moment battery materials show up on the earnings call transcript in size. Listen for the size of that battery contribution on the next call before the multiple reprices.

Alliance Resource Partners (NASDAQ: ARLP)

You can't reshore refining without electrons, and Alliance Resource Partners produces the thermal coal that still keeps roughly 16% of the US grid running through the Illinois Basin and Appalachia.

With WTI trading near $85 on Iran sanctions fallout and utility contracts getting rewritten at higher price decks, this MLP's cash yield is elevated and covered.

Alliance also carries an oil and gas royalty book, Bitcoin mining exposure, and preliminary work on lithium brine extraction from produced water in its coal footprint.

That's an option on critical minerals sitting on top of a 10%+ distribution yield. If you believe US industrial power demand is going up while domestic base-load capacity is not, ARLP is the vehicle.

POLICY IMPACT

The U.S. government pumped more than $1 billion into Intel.

The stock popped 128%. It pumped $400 million into MP Materials.

The stock popped 200%. It bought 10% of Trilogy Metals.

The stock popped 500%. And now, Trump has chosen this AI stock for a $1 billion payday.

*This ad is sent on behalf of InvestorPlace Media at 1125 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. If you're not interested in this opportunity, please click here.

• Gold: Around $4,700/oz, up roughly 9% year-to-date from the $4,325 January opening but pulled back from the $5,590 peak. Fiscal credibility fears and the Treasury's expanded bond-buyback program are the primary bid. ING sees $4,600 as the new floor.

• Silver: $69/oz, down about 14% year-to-date from the $80 January opening after pulling back hard from January's $121 all-time high. Citi still targets $90 into year-end, JP Morgan sees $63 on industrial demand softening. Split-tape metal.

• Copper: Around $6.60/lb on COMEX, up roughly 27% year-to-date. LME just cleared $14,200/t on tight inventories, Section 232 tariff pre-buying, and grid/data-center demand. Westpac's bull case of $6.12/lb already breached.

• Uranium: Holding firm in the high $70s to low $80s per pound on continued utility contracting. The Pentagon and DoE are still writing checks across the fuel cycle, and the SMR queue keeps growing.

• Lithium: Carbonate at $18,160/t and hydroxide at $18,510/t per Benchmark's August 10 assessment. SMM revised its 2026 forecast up to $20,100/t. Energy storage demand is doing what EV demand alone couldn't, putting a floor under the market.

• Rare Earths (NdPr): Ex-China spot slipped below $95/kg CIF, well under the $110/kg DoD floor. Two-tier pricing forming: subsidized Western supply versus oversupplied Chinese spot. Not converging any time soon.

• Nickel: Range-bound. Indonesia's fiscal push toward resource sovereignty and the DRC's new Musompo precursor zone are the interesting supply-side stories.

• Platinum: Quiet, but hydrogen infrastructure orders and diesel catalyst restocking are keeping the physical market snug.

Metal Trend Exploration Focus

The theme running through everything on today's briefing: the mineral supply chain is getting rebuilt in tiers. Government-backed Western supply sits at one price. Chinese spot sits at another.

Physical exchange metal, especially copper, sits at a third as tariffs and inventory drawdowns bite. You do not want to own the mid-tier producer trying to sell into Chinese spot without a Western offtake.

You want the downstream chemistry, the battery inputs, and the domestic energy that every part of the reshoring buildout requires. That's where today's three picks live, and that's where the next leg of this cycle gets paid.

— Noah Zelvis, Resource Brief