"Contrast that with their competitors, who are losing money and...

Yes they have spent lots of money building over last 5 years. Most projects are way over budget. KAL is up AUD 800M when all 4 projects were supose to cost 500M. AL blames inflation even if inflation was 3 X higher it would not explain 10% of that rise. How about capacity Lynas touted till 2 year ago that KAL would meet all the needs for lamp to reach 10.5 KT and Texas and future expansion. Now they saying it can meet the needs for 9KT production at Lamp. Lamp is still at the name plate of 15 years ago 6KT and KAL output is on site but not one KG has been processed as of the Q4 CC. Even though they are in a quite period till AR is released an announcement they had fully processed the first KAL product is still legal. You are correct about they have done lots of heavy lifting. My point of view is different. They had a 5 year plan 5 years 3 months ago. It was suppose to cost and be funded from operations. It cost was about 1.4B, just under 3 X original estimates. They still only are making original name plate of about 6 KT.
You're welcome to think they are doing fine, I do not.

Here is a Chart of past and present production Q4 2024 is down. My guess is for Q1 to be flat or down from Q4. History shows it usually drops, except Q1 2021, after covid. First KAL product should be put in plant this Q. Maybe it will go smooth but we will have to wait to see what happens. AL has told us they will blend it with Lamp C&L so maybe they will not have problems. Look at 4 Q average. Is this really what you expected 5 years ago? I know I have published this chart many times only adding new Qs. AL became CEO in late 2014. there have been many problems i agree. After 10 years I would expect substantially more than this chart shows,


Here is a chart of CAP X spending since the, 500M, 5 year plan was announced. It does not include NEXT or fixing the many problems NC left AL is the chart above what you would expect from this spending.

"Shouldnt it be a little higher with the last years great news. I thought markets looked forward." Let me address the two points in this statement secound point first.

Yes market looks forward. Usually about 6 to 12 months. That is why most Analysis forecast in detail out 12 months the world is always changing and investing further out than that has problem. investment books give many reasons for this but people do not read books much any more. The internet typically is very short sighted. Even your post says the next 6~ 12 months could be ugly.

You should look at both long term and short term averages for ASX 200 to see how Lynas compares to its peers. Not many of those pears pay dividends which raise EPS and Revenue per share multiples. Maybe if I don't give you data looking them up and studying them will help you realize that Lynas is still over priced. Note the change in EPS REVPS and PE, VS Price change in last year Do you really not think Lynas can go much more negative.

"Contrast that with their competitors, who are losing money and not even producing their own product."

This is very true of MP. It always amazes me when people cannot make a good argument to support something they believe, they find some thing worse. to say they are OK. Yes MP is in the red and no argument from me that is bad, Its stock is down 55% Vs Lynas's 45 %. Its EPS has dropped and is now negative. I will totally agree that an investment in any REE company is a bad idea right now. Look at the ASK 200 There are many companies doing much better than MP or LYC. Thats what you should be thinking about, not if MP is worse. If interest rates drop which I think they will. The combination of Interest and CG will make bounds a better investment than many stocks. Nice thing about bounds if Markets fall and start to rise you can sell bounds recognizing the CG and invest in stocks again.