I was already nearly down 55% from last November in my Albemarle...

I was already nearly down 55% from last November in my Albemarle investment before LTR crossed over $2 on the first takeover news. I am hopeful we are near the bottom on Lithium pricing now. We are well below the price where the China lepidolite producers can make money, and there is little motivation now for the China automakers to follow up on the threat to invest in ramping sodium batteries as they will remain more expensive than lithium until there is a reason to ramp them to somewhat comparable volumes.

Tianqi and IGO have both said they will be producing less spodumene concentrate next quarter. ALB has said it has no problem finding buyers for everything it makes, but I wish it would be clear about what price it is selling at as they would have to be nuts to depress the spot price that 80% of its volume is contracted at by not demanding a premium to spot.

The news has been full of downbeat stories regarding hordes of Lithium startups in Africa and Canada, and how buyers (mainly in the United States) are refusing to give up their ICE cars. However, I am sensing a changing tide to the negative news stories. They are now starting to say with the low lithium prices there will never be enough lithium supply brought online to support the amount of BEV envisioned by the regulators and automakers at the end of the decade. Sales are not falling off a cliff in China and that of course dwarfs the United States BEV market. If the market agrees prices are "too low" and we trough here around $20/kg that is still 2.5 times higher than the last bottom, and there will be good profits to be made.