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A field guide to the metals of the supercycle

If you've never read a mining company's quarterly report, this page is for you. It explains the six markets we cover, how prices actually get set, and the words that come up in every filing. No jargon without a definition.

Molten metal being poured at a smelter

How to read this site

Every article follows the same shape, so once you've read one you can skim the rest.

  1. The setup, in one paragraph

    What happened, what the number is, and why anyone should care. If you only read this, you'll still know the story.

  2. What the operators said

    Pull quotes from earnings calls and interviews, with the person's name, role, venue and date. We quote the people who run the mines, not the people who sell the metal.

  3. What the data shows

    Filings, exchange inventories, Mint sales, contract prices. Every figure links to the document it came from.

  4. The bear check

    Every piece argues against itself before it ends. If we're making a bullish case, this is where we list what would break it.

  5. Questions people actually ask

    A short FAQ at the bottom, written for the search queries that bring people here.

The six markets, in plain English

We cover these six because they share one thing: for most of the last decade nobody built enough mines or refineries to supply what the grid, EVs, data centres and nuclear plants now need. Each one is short in its own way.

AuGold

Gold is money that happens to come out of the ground. Central banks buy it, investors hold it against inflation and bad governments, and jewellery soaks up the rest. Almost none of it gets used up, so the entire history of mined gold still exists somewhere in a vault or a drawer.

What to watch: The price moves with real interest rates (higher rates make gold less attractive) and with central-bank buying. Miners live or die on the gap between the gold price and their all-in sustaining cost.

Our gold coverage →

AgSilver

Silver has two lives. Half of it is money, like gold, in coins and bars. The other half gets used in solar panels, electronics and medicine, and most of that is gone for good. Solar alone now takes a large and growing share of every year's supply.

What to watch: Silver is mostly a byproduct of copper, lead, zinc and gold mines, so a higher price doesn't bring much new supply. That's why deficits can last for years, and why the price swings harder than gold in both directions.

Our silver coverage →

UUranium

Uranium is nuclear fuel. It's mined, milled into a powder called yellowcake (U3O8), then converted and enriched before it can go into a reactor. Utilities buy most of it years ahead on long-term contracts, and only a small slice trades on the spot market.

What to watch: The term price, what utilities agree in contracts, tells you far more than the spot price. Producers like Kazatomprom and Cameco have been holding output rather than flooding the market, and the West has almost no conversion or enrichment capacity of its own.

Our uranium coverage →

CuCopper

Copper carries electricity. Every wire, motor, transformer and data centre needs it, and there's no substitute at scale. The big mines are old, their ore grades are falling, and a new one takes 15 years or more to permit and build.

What to watch: Watch the fees smelters charge to process concentrate (TC/RCs). When they collapse toward zero, it means there isn't enough ore to go around. Watch sulphuric acid too: smelters need it, and nobody covers it.

Our copper coverage →

PtPGMs

Platinum, palladium and rhodium are the platinum-group metals. Their biggest job is inside catalytic converters, scrubbing exhaust from petrol and diesel engines, which makes their demand a bet on how fast the car fleet changes. Platinum also has a growing role in hydrogen.

What to watch: Most supply comes from South Africa and Russia, both risky. Prices have sat below the level that would justify a new mine for years, which is how shortages get built.

Our pgms coverage →

NdRare Earths

Rare earths are 17 elements that aren't actually rare. Two of them, neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), make the strongest permanent magnets in the world, the kind inside EV motors, wind turbines and missiles. Digging them up is easy. Separating them from each other is the hard, expensive step.

What to watch: China does about 90% of the separating and refining, so a Western mine only matters once a separation plant is shipping oxide. Watch the NdPr price, Western price floors, and which plants are actually producing rather than announcing.

Our rare earths coverage →

How a metal price actually gets set

People talk about "the gold price" as if there's one number. There are several, and knowing which one someone is quoting saves a lot of confusion.

Spot

The price for metal delivered now, or within a couple of days. For gold and silver it's set by dealers trading with each other in London (the LBMA market). For copper it's the London Metal Exchange. Uranium spot is a thin market reported by a couple of price-reporting agencies, which is why it jumps around.

Futures (COMEX and the LME)

A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell metal at a set price on a set date. COMEX in New York is where most gold and silver futures trade; the LME in London dominates copper. The vast majority of futures contracts are settled in cash and never turn into a bar of anything. That's what people mean by "paper" metal, and it's why the amount of paper trading can dwarf the physical market many times over.

Term contracts

Big buyers don't shop on spot. A utility buying uranium, or a carmaker buying palladium, signs a multi-year contract at a negotiated price. In uranium, the term price is where most real volume clears, and it can sit far above or below spot for a long time.

Premiums

What you pay for a coin or a bar over the spot price. When retail demand surges, premiums explode. When retail gives up, they collapse, and you'll sometimes see products selling below spot. That's a sentiment gauge, and we track it.

The mismatch we write about most: paper and physical can tell different stories at the same time. In 2026, silver futures crashed while physical deficits kept growing. Uranium spot drifted while term prices set an 18-year high. The gap between the two is usually where the interesting analysis lives.

The glossary

Terms you'll meet in our articles and in the filings we link to. Plain definitions, no hedging.

AISC (all-in sustaining cost)
What it costs a miner to produce one ounce and keep the mine running, including maintenance, overhead and sustaining capital. The gap between AISC and the metal price is the real margin.
Byproduct
Metal recovered while mining something else. Most silver and some PGMs are byproducts, which is why their supply barely responds to their own price.
Concentrate
Crushed, partly processed ore, typically 20 to 30% metal for copper. It's shipped to a smelter to become pure metal.
Conversion and enrichment
The two steps between yellowcake and reactor fuel. Conversion turns U3O8 into a gas; enrichment raises the share of the useful isotope. Both are bottlenecks in the West.
Deficit
A year in which demand exceeds mine plus recycled supply, so inventories fall. Several years of deficit is how a shortage gets built.
Guidance
A company's own forecast of what it will produce and spend. Cuts to guidance are often the first sign of trouble, and we read the call, not the press release.
Head grade
How much metal is in each tonne of ore going into the mill. Falling head grades mean more rock has to be moved for the same output, so costs rise.
Incentive price
The price a metal needs to hold for long enough to justify building a new mine or plant. Below it, nothing gets built.
NdPr
Neodymium-praseodymium oxide, the rare-earth product that matters for magnets and the price everyone quotes.
Ounce (troy)
Precious metals trade in troy ounces, about 31.1 grams, roughly 10% heavier than the kitchen ounce.
Paper vs. physical
Paper is futures, ETFs and other claims on metal. Physical is the bar in the vault. They usually track, and when they don't, something interesting is happening.
Premium
The extra you pay over spot for a coin or bar. A retail sentiment gauge.
Reserves vs. resources
Resources are metal a company thinks is in the ground. Reserves are the portion it has shown it can mine at a profit. Only reserves count for financing.
Spot vs. term
Spot is today's price for prompt delivery. Term is the price in a multi-year contract. In uranium, term is where the real volume is.
TC/RCs
Treatment and refining charges: what a smelter charges a mine to process concentrate. Near zero or negative means concentrate is scarce.
Yellowcake (U3O8)
The powder uranium mines actually sell, priced per pound. What "the uranium price" refers to.

A reading order

If you want to get up to speed, these are the pieces to read first. They're the ones that explain the mechanism, not just the price move.

After that, pick a market from the archive and read the coverage in date order. The story makes a lot more sense that way.