For most of the last hundred years, the world's metal prices were set in one place. London. The London Metal Exchange opened in 1877 above a hat shop on Lombard Court. Tin, copper, lead – if you wanted a price, you went to London.

The city's traders didn't mine anything. They didn't smelt anything. They just set the number everyone else used. That system worked because London sat at the center of global trade. Metals flowed through its ports, its vaults, its banks.

Rare earths never got that treatment. For decades, the only prices that mattered were set inside China – in Baotou, in Ganzhou, on the Shanghai Metals Market. China refines roughly 90% of the world's rare earths. So China sets the price. And outside China, there has been no widely used way to check the number.

That is starting to change. Tomorrow, November 4, SMM begins publishing four new European rare earth price assessments. Erbium oxide CIF Rotterdam. Dysprosium, terbium, and gadolinium oxide for Rotterdam bonded storage. The assessments will update every Wednesday at 12:00 London time.

And SMM isn't alone. On October 30, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said it is adding 19 new grades to its rare earth price assessment. Twelve are CIF North America quotes, including erbium, holmium, thulium, ytterbium, gadolinium and lutetium. Seven are DDP China. Two agencies, one week, and the Western pricing map just got bigger.

Why does this matter? Because there are two rare earth markets now. They need two sets of prices. Dysprosium costs about $212 per kilo inside China. Outside China, estimates put the same oxide at $2,500 to $5,500 per kilo.

That's a gap of roughly twelve to twenty-six times. Terbium shows the same split: about $955 per kilo in China, an estimated $10,000 to $13,000 outside it. You can't run a supply chain on one Chinese price when the stuff costs ten times more once it crosses a border. So the pricing shops are catching up to the real world.

The timing lines up with something else. On October 15, a MOFCOM spokesman said China would keep facilitating approval of rare earth export licenses for the EU, and asked the EU to reciprocate on dual-use cases.

For Europe, that means managed access. And a managed market needs its own price.

And for the first time, they're getting them. The hat shop on Lombard Court never had to deal with anything like this.

Sometimes the world changes, and no one notices.

On the morning after Henry Kissinger's petrodollar deal with the Saudis in 1974, the bills in your wallet looked exactly as they had the night before.

The U.S. Treasury didn't issue any new money -- and nothing was announced, voted on or passed through Congress. America's new monetary order was created in secret.

Yet over the five decades that followed, that one deal helped take America from roughly 180,000 millionaires to nearly 24 million – creating extraordinary wealth for those who owned the right assets.

At the same time, the dollar lost more than 84% of its purchasing power, quietly draining the savings of millions of families.

I believe the same thing is happening again, and once more the dollar in your pocket won't look any different.

It’s got nothing to do with crypto, CBDCs or gold.

And you'll only see the change later – in what could be a radical repricing of assets, goods and services across America.

To help explain what's happening, and before it’s too late for you to prepare for this shift…

I sat down for an interview with financial reporter Kimi Weintraub:

Watch it here.

You'll discover how President Trump has assembled his new monetary order in the shadows, executive orders, closed-door deals with tech billionaires and a reported 13-nation agreement almost nobody has heard of…

I also share the five critical assets I believe sit at the heart of this historic shift…

Including the name and ticker of my No. 1 move to make today.

Time is a factor. When world leaders gather at Trump's resort in Miami on December 14, I believe the President could unveil this new monetary order to the world as a done deal.

Go here for the full interview.

On October 15, MOFCOM spokesman He Yadong said China is willing to keep facilitating approval of rare earth export licenses for the EU. He asked the EU to reciprocate by helping resolve key dual-use license cases involving China.

The framing matters. Beijing ties rare earth access to reciprocity. Europe gets facilitation. In return, Beijing wants help on its own license cases.

The DOE's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation published a national battery strategy on October 28. It links four national labs with private firms to speed up battery technology, with targets running from 2030 to 2035. DOE also announced 17 projects worth $29.5 million.

Every EV motor needs magnets. Magnets need rare earths. The money is real, but the gap between lab work and a working mine is still years wide.

IMC Rare Earths reported two yttrium-rich drilling hits at its Itarantim ionic clay project in Bahia, Brazil, on October 29. Block H returned 7 meters at 2,052 ppm yttrium oxide, including a 3-meter zone at 2,836 ppm. Block D hit 13 meters at 1,287 ppm, including 3 meters at 2,464 ppm. IMC estimates yttrium leach extraction at about 84% over a 9-meter section of that Block D hole. Yttrium makes up 36% of the rare earth content in the Block H intercept.

The timing is hard to ignore. Rare Earth Exchanges reported in August that Japan's yttrium oxide imports fell 74% year on year. Ionic clay deposits like Itarantim are the same type China mines for its heavy rare earths. New sources outside China matter more now than ever.

In 1993, one rule change sent retirement money flooding into real estate – a 681% surge. When Bitcoin's door opened, Larry Benedict traded it for 42% in a day. Now the biggest door ever is opening – and he's naming the one ticker in its path, free, here.

SMM's October 29 weekly review put PrNd oxide at 714,000–716,000 yuan per tonne, after a month-high of 744,000. Metal plants bought only as needed, and inquiries were slow to turn into orders. Dysprosium moved the other way: SMM called it the only product to strengthen continuously this week, with the oxide at 1.42–1.44 million yuan per tonne.

— Shanghai Metals Market

The 7th International Conference on Rare Earth Materials runs November 3–6 in Palermo, Sicily. It covers how rare earth materials are made, reused and put to work.

— REMAT 2026

US Critical Materials' revised Sheep Creek plan calls for sampling or drilling at four sites in the Bitterroot National Forest, at the headwaters of the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. The Forest Service is reviewing it under a categorical exclusion. Local residents and county officials keep pushing back, and the fight shows how hard it is to mine at home.

— Montana Free Press

A CEPA commentary by Sharon Hudson-Dean says China's grip on critical minerals reflects six decades of state planning. It says more than 11 Chinese universities and 40 laboratories train hundreds of specialized rare earth engineers each year, while the United States trains none. Her answer: shared US–EU rules, coordinated price floors and state support.

— CEPA