VanEck Vectors Rare Earth/Strategic Metals ETF (REMX)

Seeing conversations between China and the West about the supply of rare earths in everything from EVs/solar panels/batteries to military purposes. Becomes a critical asset. Rare earths are actually very common. But in processing them, there's a substantial environmental cost with lots of hazardous by-products. So far, China has taken on that task globally.

Now NA and SA are going to have to start refining these metals in order to have some sort of sovereignty over those types of resources. They're important from both an economic and a military standpoint.

This ETF has both US and international names. An alternative that's closer to home is XBM.

The only one he knows of that is broad and captures many of the sectors you'd be interested in investing in. ALB is a big holding. This is the one he'd use. Not in it at the moment, as we're in a bit of a corrective mode. You could buy on dips.

REMX has a 5-year annualized return of +3.59%. But its three-year is -23.57%. This shows the high volatility of the sector. The sector largely trades on sentiment towards EVs, electronics and China. Fees are 0.58%. Its weak performance has largely stemmed from its high exposure to China, when there was an 'avoid China' mentality in the market, and of course the country did experience an economic slowdown. It still has 31% exposure to China. A shift in sentiment would help here, but that is hard to time, of course. We might prefer a more-generalized metals ETF such as PICK (5-year +12.85%). It would not have the same upside in a rare earth rally, but doesn't have the same degree of performance pain, either.
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ZMT has been a holding since mid last year. It has steel, aluminum, copper and other base metal mining holdings. The infrastructure re-building will see steel playing a big part. REMX focuses in rare earths. Would go with the larger base metal play than just base metals.