Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, I introduced you to my newest colleague, Jonathan Rose – a veteran trader who’s made a career out of following the “smart money” through every market cycle.
Today, Jonathan is back with a look at one of the most under-the-radar stories on Wall Street right now: the critical materials powering the AI and energy revolutions.
What he’s uncovered isn’t another headline tech stock… it’s the hidden trade behind them, one that recently handed his readers gains as high as 700%.
You’ll see exactly how he did it in his essay below – and next week, Jonathan will join me, Eric Fry and Luke Lango to show you how to use this same approach to amplify your gains by up to 10X during The Profit Surge Event on November 10 at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Reserve your free seat here. And keep reading for Jonathan’s special report…
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Whenever the holidays come around, someone corners me at a party and asks me the same question:
What’s your biggest trade idea right now?
I know what they expect to hear. Some hot new AI stock.
Maybe, “the next Nvidia is going to be ….”
But what I tell them is the same thing I share with thousands of traders every day: Don’t chase the headlines!
Instead, you should own the critical materials that every breakthrough depends on.
These materials are so central to running everything from AI and quantum computing to smartphones and gaming consoles that global resource wars are being fought over them. They’re powering some of the most consequential tech since Apple Inc. (AAPL)introduced the iPhone.
Here’s the kicker: Most investors have never owned them directly.
Most retail traders see headlines about the latest device moving markets. So they go all-in and buy the name on the tin — Apple, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), Tesla Inc. (TSLA), you name it.
That mindset misses the full story.
My mission over the last 20+ years has been to uncover the biggest investment stories hiding in plain sight. Whether I was making markets at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange or managing risk for one of the country’s biggest prop firms, I’ve always carried the same mantra:
Education mitigates risk.
We’re only as good as the intel we get — and when we don’t see the whole picture, we get swept up in the noise.
Back in 2011, I worked as a market maker on the floor of the CME. The market was buzzing about smartphones and EVs.
At the time, Tesla was a money-losing startup, yet traders were obsessed with EV hype. But as a CME market maker, I saw something deeper — a rush among automakers and tech giants to secure the minerals those batteries required.
That’s when I had my “a-ha” moment.
While retail traders chased Tesla, Apple, and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the smart money was piling into miners like FMC Corp. (FMC) and Albemarle Corp. (ALB).
These companies supplied the raw materials powering every device — and both saw unusual trading activity months before retail investors even noticed.
That’s when I realized the real boom wasn’t in the gadgets… it was in the ground.
I made a significant amount of money on stocks like these. And with AI and other technologies more at the forefront than ever, those stocks are still very much in play today.
These major suppliers — and the way I trade them — should be on everyone’s radar.
So, in this report, you’ll see three things:
- Why these “picks-and-shovels” suppliers can outpace the headline tech stocks they power
- How to piggyback smart-money flows by tracking unusual trading activity
- And exactly how two of my recent critical mineral trades unfolded — entries, catalysts, exits — so you can spot the next setup
Take a look…
How We Profited From Critical Minerals Alongside the Smart Money
Retail traders often look at the right trends through the lens of the wrong stocks.
They buy shares of Meta Platforms Inc. (META) when they should be buying the stocks driving Meta’s AI chip build-out.
They buy Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) to capitalize on AI chip proliferation – but they know nothing about the key suppliers that provide the minerals the company needs to build its products.
That’s the trap. The noisiest names suck up all the oxygen while the smaller players with room to run hide in plain sight.
Let’s go back to critical metals — specifically rare-earth elements. These materials go into everything from the latest AI-equipped chips to EV batteries and drones.
The face of these technologies? Meta, Microsoft, Tesla.
The back end? A completely different story.
China dominates the rare-earth supply chain, which means many key producers are either offshore or so under-the-radar that most traders have no clue they exist.
Institutional traders can see the whole field. We understand how supply-chain bottlenecks and defense-contract allocations move markets — and we spot “hidden” government actions before they hit the headlines.
That’s what happened earlier this year when the Pentagon moved to shore up America’s rare-earth capacity. It committed roughly $400 million in preferred equity to a little-known mining company called MP Materials Corp. (MP).
We’d tracked the rare-earth space for months. Weeks before the Pentagon announcement, unusual trading activity hit the tape — so we entered MP on June 30.
When the Pentagon funding hit on July 9, the news sent shockwaves through the market. By the next morning, MP was already sprinting — ultimately more than doubling from our entry.
By July 15, MP’s shares had jumped by about 75%. However, we exited our trade for roughly 700% gains.
A few months later, we closed two legs of another critical-minerals trade — this time in Albemarle, the largest U.S. lithium producer.
On September 9, unusual activity hit lithium names, so we entered ALB.
Weeks later, the Department of Energy announced plans to take equity stakes tied to Lithium Americas Corp.’s (LAC)Thacker Pass project — soon to be one of North America’s biggest lithium sources. Almost simultaneously, China added new export restrictions on rare earths and lithium-ion batteries.
The sector ripped, ALB included.
On October 9, our exit signal triggered. We closed two legs for gains of ~140% and ~659%. This is what it looked like inside my trading community…
That’s the sort of results my style of trading can produce. And those are just two recent examples.
Why I’m a Results Guy — Not Just a Trades Guy
Here’s a secret most investors never learn: The kind of trading I do isn’t complicated or reserved for Wall Street insiders.
If you’ve ever bought a stock because you thought it was going higher, you already understand the foundation. You’re simply betting on direction — but doing it strategically.
I’ve traded everything from stocks and ETFs to futures and volatility products, and the principle never changes: Follow the flow. Every bit of volume tells a story. When you can see what the smart money is buying, results follow.
That’s why I call myself a results guy.
We’re all trying to grow our accounts — my job is to show you the most efficient, repeatable, and rewarding way to do it.
That 700% gain on MP Materials wasn’t luck.
It was grounded in fundamentals: insider activity, policy shifts, and data we tracked in real time.
And I want every reader to feel empowered to trade the same insights I use daily.
To do so, join me Monday, Nov. 10 at 1 p.m. ET for The Profit Surge Event, a free broadcast where I’ll show how my trading system can amplify the stock gains Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and Luke Lango are already delivering — sometimes by 10X or more. (Sign up for that event by going here.)
You’ll get three free stock picks immediately for signing up, plus I’ll reveal three trades I’m targeting around their newest recommendations — opportunities I believe could be home runs based on my market data and the unusual activity I’m tracking right now.
Click here to reserve your free seat for The Profit Surge Event.
Remember, the creative trader wins,
Jonathan Rose
Founder, Masters in Trading
