Looks like we got the move into the upside today for Rare Earths & Critical Minerals. Do we trust it? Are lows in? Or just a simple dead-cat bounce or bull trap? Pretty much every high-beta sector has rallied a bit today. $NB +17% $CRML +15% $USAR +15% $UAMY +15% $TMC +13% $NAK +12% $REA +10% $PPTA +10% $TMQ +10% $MP +9% $UUUU +8% $LAC +7% $AREC +7% $ALM +4% $UURAF +4% $ALOY +2% $EMAT +2%

The short interest in Rare Earth and Critical Mineral stocks like $USAR $MP $UUUU $UAMY somehow keep climbing… I think we are at record short interest combined with record oversold levels. I’m expecting a big move sometime soon, but I don’t know what direction. I would not be surprised to see another major “‘max pain” sell-off day but of course I’m hoping for a move into the upside.

$USAR $9.31… Wow, can’t say I ever expected to see $USAR this cheap without any sort of Rare Earth deal with China. Here’s my honest late night thoughts about the company: Context: I personally never loved the company enough to hold. The Serre Verde acquisition was a big de-risking step for the company in my eyes, but of course dilution came with it. Ironically when they locked this in, the stocks collapse started. But you could argue the collapse is completely macro-related and I’d agree. Maybe a hot take, but the only value I see in $USAR is with Serre Verde and Less Common Metals, who they’ve aquired. But that also comes with risk. I don’t think Round Top is that great or valuable… and they haven’t proven they can even process rare earths outside of acquisitions. They just buy other companies, in completely different parts of the world (Brazil, France) which in my eyes can create even further complications. Honestly one of the big things for me was the Lutnick connection… it is potentially a major stain on the company. I do believe the Democrats will gun for Lutnick and in turn $USAR in the future if they gain majority power. I have since the day it happened to be honest. I still think $USAR has potential especially if you’re buying around here, it’s just never been my personal choice in the “mine to magnet” mania. I’d rather stick with the one company who’s already doing it. I honestly think $MP has more potential than $USAR even at current levels at least long term. People are sleeping on the fact that they will be a first mover in the magnet space… But short term $USAR does trade very well overall and if and when the sector gets hot again I’d be shocked if $USAR wasn’t one leading the charge. I do own $ALOY as my YOLO “mine to magnet” play personally… but only 1000 shares for now.

Jim Cramer on $USAR USA Rare Earth: “I don’t want you to touch that thing.”

Jim Cramer on $USAR USA Rare Earth: “I don’t want you to touch that thing.”

China's 2008 is happening now. Property investment in China dropped -21% YoY in the first 9 months of 2026, its largest decline for this period of the year on record. This marks a deterioration from a -20% YoY decline in the first 8 months of 2026. The latest drop is also significantly worse than the -16% decline recorded during the 2020 pandemic. Property investment in China has now contracted every month since 2022, its longest declining streak on record. For perspective, during the 2008 Financial Crisis, this figure never fell below +1% YoY growth. China's property sector is experiencing a historic downturn.

MP Materials sits on what Ross Perot Jr. calls "the Saudi Arabia of rare earth" in California. Jim Litinsky bought the company out of bankruptcy and wanted to start making magnets too. Ross brought him to Alliance in Fort Worth, and at the groundbreaking for the first magnet facility, Jim told him: "Ross, I can't believe it. It took me three weeks to get the air quality permit in Fort Worth. It had taken me over two years in California." Then the Pentagon bought 15% of MP Materials and asked Jim for a magnet plant 10 times bigger, right away. "So now we're building a $1.2 billion building for Jim."

China urges US to halt proposed expansion of outbound investment curbs reut.rs/4dXAiIj reut.rs/4dXAiIj

# Black October For anyone who knows me even somewhat well, it's clear that I am a 99th percentile tech optimist. However, the vibes have shifted for me quite a bit in the last 18 hours, and I feel a moral imperative to share what I'm thinking and feeling with my circles so that everyone can understand, and hopefully take seriously, what's happening right now. I think October 2026 will have many chapters written about it in the history books. You know those scenes in financial movies like Margin Call where someone realizes that they're all fucked, and no one else sees it yet? And that person feels like they're crazy, and then suddenly everyone is pulling an all-nighter in a boardroom and freaking out? Yeah, that's kind of how this is feeling right now in the SF/Bay Area/AI circles. We're 48 hours into what is being called Black October. In the last 2 days there have been several dozen cyber attacks which, in isolation, would each have been the worst to happen in an entire calendar year. Every sector from government to education to big tech and banks is being massively affected, and people are starting to freak out. In a nutshell, what's happened is that frontier AI models have gotten to a point where they are as advanced as the most sophisticated programmers, with one critical difference: they can work 24/7, and you can spin up 10,000 of them with a single command and they'll work together tirelessly until they accomplish their task. The most advanced models today are from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, whose current best technology is so good that they haven't been able to roll it out to everyone yet because of the national security risks it poses. Meanwhile, the best open source models (where anyone can just download the model weights and do whatever they want with them, uncensored) are slightly behind the frontier but still 90-95% as capable. These models, developed primarily in China, are being used by black hat hackers to wreak havoc on the Western capitalist structure. Presumably, this has been part of China's plan the entire time, and we're seeing its implications fall out in real time. In red-pilled AI circles, we've been sharing and reading papers called things like "Situational Awareness" and "AI 2027" for the last year or so, which at the time felt a bit like near-term speculative fiction. They laid out the case for why Artificial General Intelligence (AI smarter than any human at any knowledge task) and Recursive Self-Improvement (models that are able to use themselves to get better) weren't half-baked future ideas anymore, but instead an inevitable outcome of the linear progress that's happening. These papers would then talk about things like "takeoff scenarios," trying to envision how that moment would come to be and what it would be like when it happened. It would either be a "slow takeoff" that would play out over the course of months and quarters, happening subtly and only obvious to a few. Or, it would be a "fast takeoff" where it would pretty much happen instantly, like a bit flipping from 0 to 1. From everything that I can see and am feeling, we are currently experiencing the fast takeoff scenario. Beyond the crazy security vulnerabilities that have come out recently, there have also been massive breakthroughs in life sciences, fundamental computer science, materials science, and pure mathematics that have all landed in the same time frame. While I still firmly believe that AI will be a net positive for humanity, it's more clear to me than ever that the societal and individual risk is very real, and is playing out NOW. For as much conviction as I have that this is happening, the thing that's caused me to lose sleep is that I don't really know what to do about it, or more importantly, what to tell you, reader, to do about it. So, the best I can do is make a few suggestions that have always been a good idea but are more timely now than ever: Set up 2-factor authentication for everything. I use Duo. Use a password manager across your devices. I use 1Password. Get an identity protection app set up. I use Alta. Move your IoT devices to their own network. Claude helped me do this. And last, but certainly not least, if you've been avoiding leaning into AI, see this as a catalyst to wake up and start using it. Don't just use the chat mode version of ChatGPT/Claude; click that Code/Work button and see how easily you can have AI write code to help you with your job. One of the biggest vulnerabilities was in a massively popular programming language called PHP, and the prompt that set it off was literally, "Find vulnerabilities in php." This is an unprecedented time for humanity, but as we've done with many things before, we will prevail so long as we are kind, loving, and open-minded to the world. Much love.