The market sentiment remains cautious. How will rare earth prices develop? [SMM Analysis]

According to upstream miners, the worsening conflict in Myanmar has led to border closures, temporarily preventing Myanmar rare earth ore from entering the domestic market. However, the supply of rare earth ore from Laos remains stable, and the import volume of Myanmar ore surged at the end of September. Therefore, in the short term, the border closure in Myanmar has limited impact on upstream separation plants, and domestic ore supply is sufficient.

However, some miners pointed out that the border closure measures in Myanmar might last for a long time. Separation plants indicated that if the closure continues for more than two months, it could lead to a shortage of raw material supply. Under the continuous influence of various news, medium-heavy rare earth prices showed an upward trend mid-week, while light rare earth prices fluctuated rangebound.

At the same time, some downstream large magnet material enterprises reported a slight increase in orders from the new energy sector, but the transaction prices of these orders, when converted to Pr-Nd alloy prices, were far below the market average, putting pressure on the profits of large enterprises. Meanwhile, small and medium-sized enterprises did not see a significant increase in orders, with the increment in magnet material market orders being minimal, and enterprises remained cautious.

In summary, although the slight increase in downstream orders has led to firm quotations from upstream holders, due to the strong market wait-and-see sentiment downstream, SMM expects that rare earth prices may still maintain a stable trend.