News: LYC Rising demand for responsible rare earths is not lifting prices, says Lynas, page-74

I do not think we will ever see total decoupling. I think AL said it best When she said at Q CC our prices are much better than spot prices but are still closely linked and go up and down with them. Not a direct quote, to lazy to go look it up. most markets including REE are world markets. Think of it as a large lake with rivers flowing into it and out of it. right now there is a very large river feeding it. China Over last 2 years more has been flowing in than flowing out This raised level and flow to all rivers flowing out, to the point they may have flooding. To slow flow the close exits in the damn. They do this by lowering price. Now some small inputs receive premiums for their product for Technical or political reasons. All are affected by the high-water level.

Some people say SMM because it is a Chinese company should not be used. I agree with about the problems with SMM. When I first started trading REE stocks over a dozen years ago there were two major auction houses, and both published daily prices. One in US one in Japan. I would be glad to drop SMM! The problem is to predict performance for any REE company you need to include price changes of what they sell. I have asked all the critics of SMM who I should use instead. I have yet to receive an answer. Hard to throw something out till there is something better to replace it. Even if something as good came out tomorrow that replaced SMM i would change slowly. Need some side by side to know the impact of a new source.