Since late June, rare earth prices have continued to rebound, and a new round of market may be brewing. Some rare earth permanent magnet manufacturers have fed back to reporters that at the beginning of this round of price increases, they have heard that upstream suppliers will continue to raise prices; relevant rare earth companies said that the rare earth indicators for the second half of the year are not clear, and downstream magnetic material manufacturers will carry out capacity expansion, and rare earth prices are likely to rise.
Rare earth industry analysts believe that rare earth prices are expected to be relatively strong in the second half of the year, and we need to pay attention to the announcement of the second batch of rare earth indicators and terminal consumption during the year, while national policy, corporate capital pressure, group trends and other factors will also affect the rare earth price trend in the second half of the year.
Purchases pick up, rare earth prices rebound
Due to different elements, prices and uses, rare earths are divided into light and heavy categories, praseodymium and neodymium are light rare earth elements, dysprosium and terbium are heavy rare earth elements, and the latter is scarcer and more expensive. My Nonferrous Network data show that in the first half of this year, the prices of major rare earth products experienced a "roller coaster". Q1 rose all the way, but Q2 fell as a whole and only began to rebound in late June.
The rebound that began in late June is related to a pick-up in purchases. The reporter telephoned Anhui and Shandong NdFeB magnet manufacturers in the name of purchasers, among which Anhui manufacturers told reporters that the entire market was rising, and current orders must be priced according to the market; Shandong manufacturers believe that prices are going up as a whole, and this wave of price increases began last week, and the upstream suppliers said that they would continue to rise.
Unlike the expectations of magnetic material manufacturers, the reactions of upstream rare earth companies have been mixed. When the reporter telephoned Minmetals and rare Earth (000831.SZ) Securities Department in the name of investors, relevant people in the company believed that price fluctuations this year were normal, and that what had a more obvious impact on prices in recent years was on the supply side, because the demand side was growing steadily and there would be no explosive growth. Staff of the Securities Department of 600392.SH believe that price fluctuations are cyclical, because downstream procurement itself is cyclical, and rare earth mining and smelting indicators will be announced in July and August, and many factors will affect the price trend to a certain extent.
Prices may be stronger in the second half of the year
Although heavy rare earths are scarcer and more expensive, prices of heavy rare earths are affected by light rare earths.
Shenghe Resources Securities Department believes that the future trend of rare earth prices is not easy to judge, and the supply and demand level has not changed much. As the rare earth index has not yet been announced, the domestic supply in the second half of the year is unknown. Judging from the public information, downstream magnetic material manufacturers want to carry out capacity expansion. If the magnetic material expansion rate is promoted in accordance with manufacturers' expectations, the supply of rare earths at this stage will certainly not be able to keep up and need to be increased.
In the first half of this year, the rare earth permanent magnet plate rose more than 16%, entering the second half of the year is still in the upstream channel, since July 1, the rare earth permanent magnet plate is up 3.86%. As of July 6, Minmetals rare earths and Shenhe Resources were up 80.56% and 110.24% compared with the beginning of the year.
