August Rare Earth Price Trend Improves: Can the Market Remain Strong? [SMM Analysis]

This week, driven by the concentrated bidding of major magnetic material companies, Pr-Nd prices have generally shown a strong trend. With the "September-October peak season" gradually approaching, can the rare earth market continue to rise?

In August, the rare earth market continued its previous strong trend. This was mainly due to the MoM increase in downstream orders for magnetic materials since the end of July. As the rare earth market gradually enters the peak season, the extent of improvement in end-user demand will become one of the important factors affecting rare earth price fluctuations.

According to SMM, previously, upstream holders were pessimistic about the market outlook and actively sold their products, resulting in reduced inventory levels for traders and separation plants. Meanwhile, orders from downstream magnetic material companies gradually increased, and since the second half of July, the rare earth upstream supply began to experience a supply shortage. Entering August, due to the continuous decrease in rare earth metal ore imports from the United States, the operating rate of separation plants in Sichuan has already started to decline.

Currently, most industry players believe that rare earth prices will remain strong in Q3, but considering the end-users' acceptance of high-priced raw materials, the actual transaction price expectations for rare earth products are not high. It is still necessary to observe the increase in orders from downstream magnetic material companies and the release of the second batch of rare earth mining quotas.