Stock price when the opinion was issued
Lithium is notoriously volatile and has been down because Wall Street has fallen out of love with EVs. But this remains a major growth area. Recently they reported a strong quarter and hugely raised their full-year forecast. He believes in lithium and EVs long term. Sell into strength and buy on weakness, like now.
The energy transition from fossil to renewable takes time. That's the reality. There's plenty of lithium in the world, but how quickly can we get it to market? The market was surprised by how quickly brine mining in Chile. Also, people aren't buying EV's as quickly as the market expected. Lithium is close to the bottom, so the risk/reward looks good.
UBS predicts EV sales will rise 30-35% in China this year. If this trend holds true, then China’s demand should offset any weakness in lithium prices. Also, Albemarle’s PE of 11.24x now has risen from 9.4x to start the year, but is historically reasonable considering the media average over five years is 30.85x. Read: PDAC special: minerals for our full analysis.