Rare Earth Metals - The Outperforming Asset You NEED in Your Portfolio! with Louis O Conner

Welcome to Ladies Kicking Assets. We are so excited to be back again, as always. And we have an incredible, incredible guest named Louie o' Connor from Strategic Metals Invest. And a little bit of housekeeping. We are not financial advisors. This is for educational purposes, and we are not tax advisors. So with that, Louie, I'm going to let you do an introduction and we'll just get right into it.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Courtney and Robin. It's a lovely to be here. I, I've. I love that little stillness that comes with prayer, you know. So now I'm gone into silent. Not silent mode, but stillness mode, which is, which is a nice place to be. So, yeah. I'm Louis o'. Connor. I'm in Tipperary in Ireland. We'll talk about strategic metals, which is an umbrella term for rare earth metals, also maybe known as rare earth elements, which are basically the raw materials that are. That power our daily lives are in all modern technology. Aviation, medical devices, electric cars, wind, solar. Actually, it'd probably be easier to say they're in every. There's not an industry they're really not in. And we get into that in more detail, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, when Robin and I, you know, we brought this up here, I don't know, a couple of months ago, and I had the. The pleasure of meeting you, gosh, probably over a. A year ago, Louis. So this has been something that has kind of been in the back of my mind for quite some time now. And I'm really excited about having this conversation because when I really dove into rare earths and what they were and all of the different industries that they are involved in, which is pretty much everything, they are necessary for everything. It's really interesting because I. And if you look at this list of metals, I've. I'd never heard of any of them.

Pronounce some of it.

It's.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I am. So Courtney and I, we've been doing some reading and some research, and what keeps coming back to me is how imperative these items are in modern society. And, you know, as I was reading about, you know, storage of the metals and, you know, just the interest in them and diversification of portfolios. And I think that what I realized is that so many people don't think about what goes into my cell phone or what powers the jet engine on the airplane. We think plastics, we think metal, we think. But we don't think elements, you know, and so it's just really. We think gold and silver, platinum. We think in terms like that most folks, not all folks, but I never allowed my mind to think beyond that of these, either of these super intrinsic elements. And so I'm interested, and we are both very interested in what, how you sort of got into this arena and then we can talk about the powerful opportunities of investing. But how did you, how did you get into this?

Well, actually, as I mentioned, I, we're Europe based, but interestingly, I first heard about this particular with rare earths as physical assets in the US I was at the, the Freedom Fest in Las Vegas. Okay. It's a libertarian, but also alternative.

We like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was there five years ago and no, maybe, maybe longer than that actually, but I used to go every year and it was there, you know, there was, there's quite a few, you know, precious metals people there. And I bumped into this gentleman from the US who, who, who, who told me about it and he was an investor. And I suppose what piqued my interest right away was just the fact that until then I didn't know you could physically own rare earth metals. I knew you could. I know you can buy gold, I know you can buy silver. And that's what got. My interest was, oh, you can actually physically own these raw materials. And, and then after that, you know, once you go down the rabbit hole, off you go, you know, so that's, that's where I first heard about them. And, and since then, I mean, I invested back then, but now I've become, you know, it's, it's, it's my business now as well. So.

Well, okay, so they're, I mean, we call them rare earths. Are they actually rare or what makes them rare or, you know, how does that fit in?

Yeah, actually it's, it's a great question, Courtney, because you might have just sort of narrowed in there on the sort of the dynamic that makes them interesting as an investment. And it might sound a bit contradictory, but they're not all that rare. Right. They were called rare when they were first discovered, you know, because they were considered rare at the time. But what's rare is finding them. How would I explain it? So, so rare earths, they don't occur naturally. Okay. They're always a byproduct of another raw material. So they're rare, they're sort of scattered all around. It's rare to find them in abundance anywhere. And what makes them interesting as an investment? For example, there's plenty of rare earths in North America, in Canada, in China, Japan is now starting to sort of, they're going to mine the sea floor for rare earths. They're in Australia. But what makes them complicated, if you will, and expensive is finding them high grade enough that they can be refined. As Robin said, they go into jet engines. So there's three quarters of a ton of rare earths in one F35 fighter jet. It's finding enough of a quantity that you can, you know, you can refine them enough that they, you know, they're safe to use. They have to be. The process of sort of extracting, separation and refining them is what makes them expensive.

Okay, well, and I'm just sitting here looking at, at some of these I can't pronounce. I can pronounce terbium, that one. That's an easy to go court.

Give it a go there. Try preseo, Daimyin.

Well, I got germanium. I can handle that one. Gallium, terbium, dysprosium.

Do you got it? Look, look, I'm Irish and I, I, when I say them, I can see the Germans looking at me funny. And when the Germans say them, I look at them funny. So a Texan take is good. You know, we all have our own way of pronoun, pronouncing them. So.

Yeah, well, let's see, I got disproportionately prosium, neodymium.

Yeah, that's it. Okay, that's it. Yeah. So what, what makes them interesting as an asset class is I suppose the reason, like when Robin mentioned they're, they're, I suppose they're, they're not hidden, but they're hidden in plain sight. You know, what's, what's the big change in our lives say in the last 30 years is basically technology, right? We, you know, not everybody had a, well, nobody had a smartphone or so. Rare earths have been around for a while, but it's only in the last, say 10, 15, 20 years, they've, they've literally become the backbone of manufacturing in this 21st century. So the demand has been increasing and increasing, and that's why now they're maybe going to become a bit more mainstream as an asset class. I think if they were available previously and people knew their applications, anybody who bought gold and silver would also have bought rare earths. But it's only in the last 10 years they've become available as an asset class because, you know, obviously any investment you've got to, you know, do your due diligence and, you know, safety, you know, and security is the first thing you check out. And the ability to Sort of liquidate your assets. So it's only in the last 10 years they've been available as an asset class to purchase and liquidate safely.

Okay. When they mine these minerals or these metals, can they be used right. Then do they have to go through any kind of processing or. I know somewhere I read that China has. Is it 80% of the market or what does that look like?

Good. Yeah. So in believe it or not, Back in the 1980s, the US was the largest producer of rare earths, producing 60%. This is before. Now demand really surged but you know, they were used or some of them are semiconductors, so they're used for electrical goods and stuff. But at that time in the 1980s, the US was the largest producer. And I think what happened now, as you said, China now completely dominates rare Earths. They've 87% of the world's refining. What happened was in the 1980s, possibly the first of all, China understood before Europe and before the US that these raw materials were about to become the backbone of manufacturing. They probably saw what was coming and they decided they wanted to domestically at least be self sufficient. So what happened was China began to produce these rare earths for a lot less money than the U.S. and I think the U.S. at the time thought, you know something, it's this process of refining. It's messy, it's complicated, it's expensive. Why don't we let the Chinese do it, you know, on the cheap and then our manufacturers will purchase these raw materials cheaply. Now it was probably a good idea at the time, but what happened was in fact the US set up. You can Google this, you'll see the called the Bureau of Mines to make sure the US remained competitive and that China didn't sort of run away with this. And then what happened? I suppose the government administration changed or whatever, but the Bureau of Mines was defunded in 1996 and it's only existed on, on paper ever since. And since then rare earths have become, you know, just, you know, intrinsic, as Robin said, in our daily lives. I mean like one, one smartphone has 12 rare earths. Like they, it's because of rare earths, they light up. It's because of rare earth. You can swipe when your phone vibrates. It's because of a neodymium magnet. So they're just now, you know, look, I, I'm going to say something and it sounds like an exaggeration and it is a little bit of an exaggeration.

I told you I'm going to exaggerate you warned us.

I don't know if that's because I'm Irish or I'm male or maybe a bit of both, but. But yeah, here's the exaggeration. If all the gold in the world disappeared tomorrow, it really wouldn't make any difference, right. If all the rare earths disappeared, planes wouldn't fly, cars wouldn't drive, buildings would collapse. We wouldn't have any of this technology. We wouldn't have nuclear energy, we wouldn't have nuclear power. We wouldn't have, you know, they're increasingly important to military capabilities as well as economic prosper. So they've just become so important. And obviously that makes sense then, to have them as an asset class. I mean, maybe we'll get into it in a minute, but when you hear the numbers, like the, you know, the, the increases in value and, you know, the profit to be made, let's. We're talking about investing, so, you know, we can, we can talk about that as well.

That's incredible to really think that it affects so many aspects of our lives. You know, I've never really dug in and figured out what makes my phone work. I had no idea what made it vibrate and light up and everything like that.

I just wanted to. To do it, you know.

Yeah. And so. And you're. You're talking about buildings and, you know, aeronautical. I know, I know it's involved in, you know, solar energy. It's needed for solar panels and really pretty much everything I was looking, I was trying to look on the site. I had it pulled up, but I keep clicking on different things just to get different. Let's see here.

Well, definitely renewable, high tech, military and aviation. And then the elements. You know, I was so on with your business. I was looking at where you. So you can go on and buy these items and store them yourself. I thought this was sort of fascinating. Or you can store these strategic metals at this location, the Metlock location in. Is it Frankfurt, Germany?

Yes, yes.

Courtney and I were talking about taking a field trip out there. I thought that would be so much fun to really see what's happening out there. And I love the fact that, you know, you go out there, you have no problem with people coming and taking a tour. It's very high security. And then, you know, I was just kind of looking about, how does that work? Is that very similar to like these gold and storage facilities here in the US that are in.

Good question. Locations?

I mean.

Yeah. You mentioned something important there, Robin. Chain of custody. Right now. What's important to Say, obviously if, if, let's say if you became a client, if you buy, you know, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, ten thousand, our minimum investment is ten thousand say of gallium. Once you've paid for that and we ordered the raw materials, you own them. You do physically own them. This is not, you know, a share in anything or a piece of paper. You own those raw materials. Now it's up to you if you wanted to move them to Texas or to California or to Switzerland or Singapore. It's entirely up to you. But we, we suggest that we recommend you store with our, what we call our sister company. It's, it's owned by the same industry supplier simply because they're extremely liquid as an asset and they're mostly extremely liquid liquid if they're in a storage, if they're still in the chain of custody. Trying to explain that a little bit better, like if you move them, say to Alabama, I don't know why I'm.

Saying Alabama, but talking to two southern ladies from Texas, it must be.

The accents are sort of, you know.

That'S what it is. It is.

If you move them there, obviously there'll be a little more transportation cost. You might pay some import duties. But the key thing is you've taken them out of the chain of custody. For example, when you buy them from us, they always remain in the original packaging from the producer because no industry buyer will buy them even from us if they're not still in the original packaging. And that makes sense because, let's say the DOD, US Department of Defense are buying raw materials for F35s. Right? They cannot have any question about the origin of those raw materials and the purity levels and the analysis. So they'll only buy, you know, an original where they can see who produced it and where it was reduced. And they know, do you know what I mean? They wouldn't. So if you move them out of the chain of custody, if you come back to us, then we guarantee to liquidate them for you. But if you come back in three or five years, they may need to be, likely need to be retested. So by moving them, you're just adding additional cost to yourself. Whereas if you store with us, it's a sister company. To answer your question, the facility, it's sort of interesting. It used to be a bunker in World War II. So it was a shelter for civilians two levels below ground. And it's been converted to a bank level secure vault, like you said. It's got like 2 meter, you know, walls and 3 meter door, you know, fully insured against everything. And we also store gold and silver there. And PGM is platinum group metals. So we converted it to a vault. That's where we recommend you store because it's also a duty free zone. So it's the same as if you stored in Switzerland or Singapore. And the purchase sort of an exit can be completely tax free if you hold them a minimum of one year.

Okay, that's good to know.

And you, you'd be very welcome to come and visit at any time. And yours truly will, will meet you at the airport and be available for sightseeing for a day or two. And you know, I love, love to get clients over. You know what's sort of interesting about as well is there's more. We've more than 200 metric tons of rare earths. It's the largest inventory anywhere outside of China.

How much y' all are holding in this bunker?

Wow. Yeah. And we're, and we're, we have purchased land for a second facility. In the next three to five years we'll have a second bolt. And so the business is growing, you know, because the demand is growing.

Yes.

Now you said a minute ago the minimum investment was 10,000 and you said you could buy gallium or buy this. I mean it seems like it would be smarter to buy a little bit of all of them. How many rare earths, I mean, do you recommend buying a little bit of all or just putting it into one? I feel like you should be diverse. I love diversification. I feel like if you're going to have rare earths, you should be diversified in those as well. And then how many rare earth options do you have? I mean, do you have five different metals or 10 or 20?

Yeah, good question. So there are 17 rare earths and not all. We only offer 10 as physical assets. We, we sell the full 17 to industrial buyers because they have industrial uses. But there's only 10 that are considered relevant as, as physical assets for investors. And that's because these are the ones where demand is, is far greater than supply. Some of them, there's no problem with supply whatsoever and demand is not always there. So at the moment out of the 10, there's two that we're not recommending clients investors buy because we, we it, that's tellurium and rhenium. Because right now we don't see them relevant. What we, what we think is going to happen is the prices are going to come down. So we're not recommending clients buy them. Now look, if somebody knows Something we don't. And they say I want to buy rhenium. I know you're not recommending it right now, of course we'll happily facilitate the sale. But at the moment we offer eight and I would agree with you Courtney, that we suggest clients buy all eight because if you buy all eight of them, you're completely diversified and that means you're invested in all modern technology. Right. Medical devices, aviation, military applications stations, electric cars, wind power, solar power. So you're, you're, you're, you're literally at the beginning of the sort of supply chain, if you will, of all industries. I mean, I think, even, I think either Elon Musk or Jim Jeffries, one of the North American guys said, he said, sure, invest in Tesla, but also invest in the raw materials we need. Yeah, that's what you're doing basically.

Yeah, well, and you know we're seeing this big, huge, you know, electric car push right now. I know Ford is building a huge multi billion dollar facility over in Tennessee I believe it is, you know, for all of these electric cars. And so, and you know there's a lot of states, California is pushing to be completely electric by 2030. You know, all of these things take a lot of these metals. They have to have them. So, and, and I've looked at, you know, I get, I subscribe to your newsletter and you know, the gains, if you take a look at these metals charts, I mean the way that they've moved in the last year is crazy. And I think we're just barely seeing the tip of the iceberg on the potential of where these are going as their needs increase throughout all of these markets.

Absolutely. Demand is really off the charts. I give you an average like some of them, demand is six times greater than supply, some is nine times greater than supply. Somebody said to me recently, actually a gentleman in the US which sort of really startled me, but he literally said there is not enough rare earths to go around. And he said in the next five to 10 years we'll probably see, see some of the car manufacturers that you mentioned that we know and love that have been around for 100 years likely will not, will go out of business because they won't be able to get enough of these raw materials. Right. You mentioned the, the Ford that's, that's the single biggest investment in Ford's entire history in one of us $11.4 billion in elect in what they call campuses or which are factories for electric cars. You know, so it's going to be a dog fight if you will. Or it already is. I mean, you've seen the numbers, but it's not. The other side of that coin as well is that China has 50% of the world's reserves.

Yeah.

And China's the government. The goal of the Chinese government is for their domestic consumer economy to equal and then eventually exceed the export economy. So the reason those prices you saw like, you know, half, you went up 177 last year is simply because China's first priority is its own consumer economy. And they're beginning to sort of restrict quotas because they, you know, they have to put their own economy first. And you know, we're going to see that for the foreseeable future.

Okay, interesting. How long of a hold time do you recommend? If, you know, if I'm buying, say I buy a hundred thousand dollars worth of metals, I mean, is that a five year hold? A ten year hold? Hold them indefinitely?

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's entirely up to you, Courtney, because you own those metals. But if you hold them a minimum of a year, they're completely tax free. I mean, in Europe, I mean, obviously you probably have capital gains and stuff. In the U.S. yeah, don't take tax advice from an Irishman.

Right.

But when I mean tax free, I mean in Europe, that the purchase and the sale of them, there's no vat, there's no import duties. And if you've held them a minimum of a year, so obviously that's recommended. But we generally recommend three to five years, even 10 years, because this dynamic, this short disparity between supply and demand, China's not years ahead, they're a generation ahead. And it'll take a generation. For Europe, the US you met, I don't know if you heard, but just last week Sweden announced that they have 1 million tons of rare earths in, in sort of northern Sweden in the Arctic, you know. But the, the world's reserves is 120 million tons. So even that 1 million tons is not huge. But here's the interesting thing about it. Even after they study it and you know, license it, It'll still be 10 or 15 years before those rare earths even get to the market. And that's the 10 or 15 years I'm talking about. That's the window of opportunity here for investors.

But it's also finite supply. Right. There's, it's not like these are.

Being.

Created down in the ground. There's only so much.

Exactly. Yeah. And, and I'll tell you why as well. Like, like half the year went up 177 last year. The reason for that is the aviation industry. And I suppose this, the space exploration is now evolving to become a space industry. I mean, for sure, 2050, we will be tourists in space. So there was a. You need half the. For jet engines and rocket engines. So what happened was demand increased in the short, in the short term, but supply couldn't. And the reason it couldn't is hafnium is a byproduct of, of zirconium mining. So you can't just increase zirconium production just to satisfy hafnium. So as you, as you said, that's why there's always only a limited amount available. But, you know, this dynamic won't change in the next three or five or 10 years. I mean, I first bought in 2017 and I'm still adding today and I still will continue to, you know, so not long.

I mean, just not long, you know.

No, no, no, no. They've only been available, Robin, as physical assets since 2010. And I'll just touch on the most important thing I'll probably say today, which is we are the only industry supplier in the world that offers rare earths. Yeah. Private investors. So what that means is, and this is the real key thing here is primarily 80% of our business activities are we buy earth from producers, mostly in China, and then we resell them to industry buyers in 70 different countries. So that's what we're doing 80% of the time. If we weren't doing that, it wouldn't be safe to even buy rare. If I was like a sales and marketing company with no connection to the industry, this wouldn't make sense. It's a massive red flag. You're buying from an industry supplier who's buying and selling metals every day. And if they weren't, there's no way they could guarantee the authenticity the metals or two, the liquidation. So, like, without getting into. Well, yeah, I won't get into. If, if, if somebody contacts me privately and they want to know, you know, questions on turnover and stuff like that, I'll.

Let's talk about that. How, how would our, how would our guests get in touch with you? And what would be the best way for them to get maybe your brochure and look at this as an investment for their portfolio?

Sure.

So, yeah, I want to know. So tell me.

Okay, so, well, my, the website is Strategic Metals Invest. Somebody can go there and just download a brochure.

Right.

Obviously, in return for that, leave your name, email and phone number. And, and I I personally, you know, follow up with everybody and mention ladies kicking assets. Our Alternatively, my email is louis l o u I s strategicmetals invest.com email me directly and I'll, I'll respond.

Okay.

And I saw one more there@info strategicmetalsinvest.com. are you still using that also?

Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

Well, fascinating. You have shared so much in such a short window of time, and I'm intrigued. I know Courtney is too. We're both like, oh, my God, we want to know more.

Well, this is just one of those investments that has the potential to really multiply very, very quickly, especially because of the demand. And, you know, we've talked a lot here recently about being diversified and making sure your portfolio is diversified. And this is, you know, I, I think everybody should have precious metals. Rare earths is kind of another component of that precious metal area. And I think this is a, a great way to add something significant to your portfolio. So I'm really excited about it.

Definitely grow. And you know, the one thing that I really liked so much on here is your entry point for, for investment was low. And that allows those individuals who maybe have $20,000 sitting in the bank or they want to pull money off Wall street and put it into something that's going to really be exponential. And this is one of those opportunities for someone that doesn't have, say, $100,000 in the bank that they want to convert. This is a way for them to begin to build wealth. And I just liquid, which is great. And yeah, how, and how quickly you can do that just by providing, you know, a bank account and such for that turnaround. So is your length of hold for. I'm sorry, is to do that before you divest. Is your length of hold time one year, or is that just what you're suggesting before?

That's all we're, we're suggesting. You know, as I said, once you've purchased them, you own them and you could, could liquidate them a week later. You know, in fact, I had a lady in the US In September who wanted to buy just hafnium, right? And I said to her, when at that stage, half name was up 90 already for the year. And I said, it's been going up a lot. Are you sure? I said, would you not. Would you like to diversify and buy more metals? He said, no, no, I just want hafnium. Well, lo and behold, hafnium's up 80% since September. So I don't know what she knew that I didn't but if, you know, and she could liquidate it now in three months and, you know, make a nice profit. So. So, yeah, you own the method. Just to touch on the point you were going to there, Robin, I think is some of our clients look at it like a savings account, you know, is the minimum is just 10,000. And then once you've got that, you can add. There's no minimum after that. You can add a little bit here. You can sort of use our business as a. Your own platform to buy and sell rare earths because you can purchase them within three to four working days and you can liquidate them in three to four working days. So you can, you know, literally, you know, buy a kilo here, buy a kilo there. Wow.

Love this. Love this. Well, thank you so much for your time and just sharing with us about this very special asset class that I know you're going to have folks seeking more information on.

Yeah. And when, when are you two coming to Frankfurt then?

We need to compare our calendars. I'm going to come soon. Don't hang up.

And we'll talk about a couple of months. Yes, we shall. We shall schedule that. Well, well, folks, we are. We are bringing this to a close. We want to thank Louie so much for joining us today. We're ladies Kicking Assets and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and help us spread the information and information on building wealth. Till next time, friends. It's Robin and Courtney with Louis o'. Connor. Thank you.