rare earth sentiment tone for friday, page-18

Aus, I think your view is a bit over-pessimistic on the RE price front.
"Going to take a good deal more than a few empty headlines to turn that sentiment around." Frankly, when the headlines are reporting RE prices they're scarcely empty from a Lynas POV.
The last couple of weeks have started to clearly indicate a price turnaround IMO. Mostly inside China but first signs of that percolating through to FOB ex-China are also there.
Anyone can check this at http://www.metal-pages.com/. Go to the RE dropdown menu near the top of the page, centre. Choose the element and look at the price graphs that come up on the RSH of the new page.
One example Nd (neodymium): there are 8 price graphs.
All the ex-Europe prices have ticked up (6/8 of them) and European prices are steady. The standout is Nd-Pr oxide 99% (important to Lynas) inside China:

Check the Eu, Pr and Dy for yourselves.
Cerium still looks weak and Lanthanum steady: while they do represent 3/4 of Lynas production by weight they're only about 20% by value so don't be fooled.

On a different note, what should we make of Baotou's price problems? I'm not sure: maybe no demand maybe they can't make a profit at the current prices. I certainly hope it's the latter because even at these price levels it appears that Lynas can make a (modest) profit.