Special Research on One of Today's Top Opportunities
Editor's note: Last week, I highlighted three reasons why mining stocks have huge upside ahead of them.
Thanks to decades of underinvestment, changes in our industrial world, and new partnerships with the U.S. government... these companies' earnings (and shares) are set to soar.
Instead of our usual fare, and given our offices are closed today for the Thanksgiving holiday, I want to share a related, special essay written by my colleague and MarketWise CEO, Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig.
In it, Doc highlights a particular corner of the metals and minerals market that, thanks to new U.S. policies, could rocket higher overnight.
We hope you enjoy.
The Potential of a Presidential Blessing
The U.S. government is picking winners.
You may like that, or you may not, but it's happening. When they do, stocks soar.
It turns out we need stuff. Important stuff.
And since we get so much of our rare earths and critical minerals from foreign countries, the government is wading into private markets and making sure our home-grown businesses can produce what we need.
You don't need a specific government deal to get rich investing in metals or minerals today.
But as I'll explain... it certainly doesn't hurt.
Back in July, the Department of Defense made a deal with MP Materials (MP) to accelerate the build-out of the country's supply chain of rare earth magnets.
MP operates the only rare earths mine in the U.S.
The stock soared 50% on the news and continued to run higher in the months that followed...
In October, the Trump administration bought a piece of Lithium Americas (LAC).
It wants to help push forward one of Lithium's projects that will create the largest source of lithium in the Western Hemisphere (lithium is needed for electric-vehicle batteries, among other things).
This stock rocketed on the news, too...
Shortly after, the U.S. Department of War (the freshly introduced name for the Department of Defense) scooped up about 10% of Canadian mining company Trilogy Metals (TMQ).
The government wanted to secure critical-mineral supply chains... And Trilogy is involved in copper, zinc, cobalt, lead, silver, and gold.
Like MP and LAC, shares of Trilogy soared on the news...
That leads me to one particular metal I like today... aluminum.
Aluminum isn't the most exciting-sounding investment in the world... until you hear some of the details.
See, although it's the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, making it is still an enormous industrial challenge.
To get aluminum, you must mine bauxite, refine the bauxite into alumina, and smelt the alumina into aluminum. This process demands an extraordinary amount of energy.
Producing a single ton of aluminum requires as much energy as multiple U.S. homes use in a year. Energy accounts for nearly 40% of total production costs.
Some even refer to aluminum as "solid electricity."
The key input to aluminum production is cheap power.
That's why the U.S. aluminum industry has migrated to places like China. Last year, China accounted for nearly 60% of the world's aluminum output.
However, Trump's tariffs have revived U.S. aluminum production in a big way, completely changing its economics.
While many of his import duties are facing a Supreme Court challenge, aluminum falls under a clearer law called Section 232. These are tariffs put in place due to national security. Were a war to start, other countries could refuse to send us necessary materials.
So Trump used Section 232 to put tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Of all the Trump tariffs, these have been the simplest and least controversial.
It can vary by country, but to simplify, aluminum coming across the border gets tacked with a 10% tax – but since that happens at various stages, the final amounts can be much more.
That's turned some American producers from being unable to compete with foreign aluminum... to being some of the lowest-cost smelters in the world.
Whether you agree with it or not, this is one way that government policy can dramatically change the fortunes of a business... and shareholders as well.
Tracking this sort of economic activity is precisely how you can find investments that not only outperform... but enrich investors who are paying attention.
New Research in The Stansberry Investor Suite...
In lieu of today's usual fare – our Stansberry Monitors update – we're sharing a special report adapted from the recent issue of Doc's Retirement Millionaire monthly newsletter.
In it, Doc continues the story above... but he digs further into a specific company.
In this case, it's an aluminum producer that could end up being the only maker of high-quality aluminum in the U.S... the kind we need for vital aircraft and other products key to national defense.
If the government deems this particular producer vital, it could get a big boost... just like the stocks we listed above.
Stansberry Investor Suite subscribers can read the entire report here.
If you don't already subscribe to The Stansberry Investor Suite – and want to learn more about our special package of research – click here.
Until next week,
Matt Weinschenk
Publisher and Director of Research
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