Zinc doesn't get the headlines gold and copper get, and that is exactly why you should be looking at it right now.

Smelter outages across three continents just took real tonnes off the market, and the price is telling you what the analyst decks haven't. If you've been waiting for a base-metal setup that isn't already priced to perfection, this is your Friday briefing.

You are looking at a base metal that almost nobody on financial TV mentions, and it just tightened up in a way you cannot manufacture from a spreadsheet. Zinc futures are pushing toward four-year highs after simultaneous smelter outages in Kazakhstan, Peru, and Sweden knocked meaningful refined tonnage out of the market.

This is not a demand-side speculation story. This is actual metal that was supposed to be flowing to galvanizers and die-cast plants in Q3 that no longer exists.

The setup matters because zinc is the anti-glamour trade. It has no AI narrative, no defense-stockpile push, no central-bank bid. What it has is a treatment-charge structure that has been signaling smelter distress for two quarters, and now the physical market is confirming what the TCs already knew.

Global stockpiles at LME (London Metal Exchange) warehouses have been drawing down steadily, and the concentrate market is genuinely tight.

When a metal moves on real supply destruction rather than macro speculation, the move tends to stick. Galvanized-steel demand is holding up, infrastructure spending in the US and China is not slowing, and there is no new smelter capacity coming online in 2026 to fill the gap.

Your takeaway: Zinc is doing what copper did in 2023 before the copper trade got crowded. Base-metal producers with meaningful zinc exposure will see this flow through Q3 earnings before the sell-side updates its models. You want to be early on this one, not chasing.

Ottawa launched the Canada Critical Minerals Accelerator this week with C$2 billion in firepower, and the first check is already out the door. Prime Minister Mark Carney's team wrote a C$400 million investment into Teck's Trail smelter in British Columbia to boost germanium, gallium, and antimony production capacity.

Those three metals sit at the top of Beijing's export-restriction list, and Trail is one of the few Western facilities that can produce them at scale.

The pattern here is worth noting. Ottawa just committed C$500 million to Newmont's Red Chris expansion last week, and now C$400 million to Teck's Trail. That is nearly a billion Canadian dollars deployed into single-asset supply-chain hardening in under ten days.

Combined with the five-week US rare earths funding surge that Fastmarkets flagged, you have two G7 governments treating critical-minerals capex like defense procurement.

The strategic message: Canada is done being a mining jurisdiction that ships raw concentrate to Asia for processing. They want the refined product, the tax base, and the leverage that comes with owning the midstream.

Your takeaway: Miners with midstream and refining assets in Canada or the US just got a structural tailwind that pure-play upstream producers do not have.

Government equity and loan guarantees compress the cost of capital in a way that the market takes months to price in. You want processing exposure, not just shovels in the ground.

Geologists confirmed this week that a Wyoming deposit contains one of the largest rare earth concentrations found on US soil since the 1950s, principally neodymium and praseodymium, the exact inputs going into permanent magnets for EVs (electric vehicles), wind turbines, and F-35 airframes.

China currently produces more than 85% of the world's refined rare earth output. That number has been quoted so often it has lost its sting, but let it land for a second: one country, one supply chain, one political relationship standing between the West and its magnet supply.

The Wyoming find will not solve that overnight. Even a permitted, financed rare earth mine takes years to reach commercial output, and refining capacity is the actual bottleneck. But the discovery lands during a policy window that has never been wider.

The Pentagon just launched a $300 million lithium stockpile program. The DoD (Department of Defense) has opened military installations to critical mineral processors. Arizona's Hermosa mine just cleared its final federal hurdle under FAST-41 permitting.

Your takeaway: Every rare earth-adjacent equity gets a valuation bump when a discovery of this size hits the tape, but the real winners are the companies with existing separation and magnet-making capacity. Discoveries make headlines. Processing makes money.

Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC)

Kinross is the mid-tier gold producer the generalist crowd keeps overlooking because it isn't Newmont and isn't Barrick. That is your opportunity.

The company has been steadily raising guidance across its Tasiast, Paracatu, and Great Bear assets, and Great Bear alone is shaping up to be one of the highest-grade undeveloped gold projects in North America.

With gold at $4,121 an ounce and central banks adding a net 41 tonnes in May, producers with low all-in sustaining costs (AISC) and stable jurisdictions are the ones minting cash.

Kinross checks both boxes. You want producers where every $100 move in gold flows almost directly to the bottom line, and this is one of them. The re-rating on Great Bear alone hasn't been fully priced in yet.

Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL)

If you believe silver's pullback from its $121 January peak is a correction and not a top, Hecla is your torque. It is the largest primary silver producer in the United States, with operations in Idaho, Alaska, and Quebec.

Silver at $60 is still a 63% move higher year-over-year, and Hecla's operating leverage to the metal is significant given its cost structure. The company has been steadily reducing debt and expanding output at Keno Hill, and its Greens Creek mine remains one of the lowest-cost silver operations globally.

Industrial silver demand from solar and electronics remains structurally tight. When silver decides to run, Hecla moves faster than the metal.

Nutrien (NYSE: NTR)

Nutrien is the world's largest potash producer and one of the top phosphate producers, both of which sit on multiple critical minerals lists globally. This is a $31 billion mining and fertilizer giant that spent 2025 rationalizing costs and buying back stock aggressively.

Food security is now a national-security conversation in Washington, Ottawa, and Brussels, and potash concentration in Russia and Belarus is the same kind of supply-chain vulnerability that rare earths represent. Nutrien controls the Western hemisphere's answer to that problem.

The stock has been range-bound while the fundamentals have quietly improved, which is exactly the setup you want before the next ag-input cycle turns.

• Gold: $4,100/oz — down roughly 4.7% year-to-date from the $4,325 January opening but structurally supported. China's central bank bought 15 tonnes in June, its 20th straight monthly purchase. Global central banks added a net 41 tonnes in May.

• Silver: $60/oz — pulled back sharply from its $121 January all-time high but still up around 63% year-over-year. Industrial demand from solar and electronics keeps physical tight even as speculators exit.

• Copper: $6/lb — up roughly 21% year-to-date from the $5.20 January opening. Macquarie flagged a projected 262,000-tonne surplus in 2026, but supply disruptions keep the physical market tighter than the balance suggests.

• Zinc: Approaching four-year highs after simultaneous smelter outages in Kazakhstan, Peru, and Sweden. Treatment charges have been signaling this for months. Nobody in the base-metal crowd is talking about it yet.

• Uranium: Holding above the $75 level on continued utility contracting and the Pentagon's expanded interest in domestic fuel capacity. Structural deficit through 2030 remains the base case.

• Nickel: Surplus narrowing per this week's forecast update. Stainless steel demand is still expected to expand 5% year-over-year, which puts a floor under the LME price even with Indonesian supply steady.

• Rare Earths: Neodymium and praseodymium prices firm on Pentagon procurement and the Wyoming discovery news. Refining the bottleneck remains the actual investment thesis, not the mining side.

• Lithium: Pentagon's $300 million battery-grade carbonate stockpile is a floor-setting event for the sector. Producers with US-based conversion capacity get an implicit put option on their offtake.

Metal Trend Exploration Focus

The theme running through this week is not glamour. It is quiet supply destruction and government capital deployment happening simultaneously across zinc smelters, rare earth refineries, and critical mineral midstream assets.

When physical supply tightens while sovereign wealth writes equity checks into the same sector, you get the kind of compound tailwind that turns overlooked names into 2027 core holdings. Base metals are where the mispricing is right now, not precious metals.

And the miners with midstream, refining, and government backing are the ones you want to own before the sell-side finishes updating its models.

You're not late on this cycle. You're right on time for the next leg.

— Noah Zelvis

Resource Brief