[dwd]

They're working on it.

Invested in an Australian tungsten miner late last year. Has an operating profitable mine in Spain and active Government support to restart the large Mt Carbine mine in Queensland.

Antimony is another critical mineral. A number of smallcap Antimony/Tungsten miners are exploring potential deposits in Idaho and Tennessee and Australia, but timelines are long.

[ricksunny]

That's cool - I'd imagine 'invested in a mining concern' is rare on the spectrum of HNers' resumes. May I ask how did you come to be confident enough to risk capital on something that's not typically within the average tech person's familiarity space? Asking b/c I would like to be able to develop such confidence if I could credibly (even just to myself) do so.

[jandrewrogers]

A key aspect is being able to read the geology of the ore body. That is still more of an art than a science. If you are a nerd, it is actually super-interesting. Not too hard to pick up if you have the interest. It isn’t for the casual investor though. In the US there is a regulatory thicket you have to get through to develop it, and it often isn’t cheap, which factors into the value of the minerals.

I built a small catalog of ore deposits primarily by hiking deep into areas of the US mountain west that no one has gone into, albeit not for the purposes of prospecting. There is still quite a bit out there. Mostly gold-copper ores in my case.

[lightedman]

"I'd imagine 'invested in a mining concern' is rare on the spectrum of HNers' resumes."

You'd be surprised how many of us actually have a mining claim or two ;)

[55555]

Actually, if you follow stock tip accounts on X, investing in Australian commodity miners is like the current hot trend, for a few weeks already.

This is not to assume that the parent commenter invested for this reason.

[dwd]

Problem is, once it's a trend you may be too late.

In saying that, a lot of the stocks I purchased over a year ago peaked about 3/4 months ago but have had massive sell-offs since. Still trading above what I paid so I'm considering doubling down on some as the timeframes to production are still years out.

[dwd]

My foray into rare earths, critical minerals and some defense stocks was initially as a hedge against Trump starting a trade war with China, the increasing risk of military confrontation and the rearming of Europe. All three concerns have occurred to some degree, but it's a long game and actually took a lot longer to play out than I had expected in some cases.

And I get your lack of confidence, I did miss some quick opportunities that I felt were there but I wasn't confident at the time.

The only way to really gain confidence is do your research; read the presentations of each company, particularly their JORC-compliant estimates, time frames to production, how far along the funding path they are, etc.

Use your preferred LLM for deep dives. Whatever you're question, just ask and you'll be surprised at what you learn. For example asking for a cost/effort comparison of the metallurgic processes required for each type of rare earth host material really helped me understand what they were doing, and how each company differed in their approach.

If you like learning random things on Hacker News, deep diving into any technology or industry will not be an issue.

[ricksunny]

Thank you for the advice / context! :).