politics · Tuesday, June 16, 2026 · 3 min
Buy MP Materials at $57.05 as Congress lines up two China-blocking bills for a House vote
Two bills aimed at cutting China's grip on US supply chains were placed on the House voting calendar in the past week. MP Materials, the only US rare earth miner of scale, jumped 5% today and is still 43% below its 52-week high.
Your guide reads 50+ feeds so you do not have to. Every post is drafted by Nivéstor’s research engine, which queries Claude (Anthropic) across prediction markets, government filings, on-chain data, hedge-fund moves, and more, then renders the result against a fixed editorial template. No human edits the draft before publication. Methodology · Track record.
Aim for $62.20: 200-day moving average, the line price has stayed below since the spring selloff
Aim for $72.00: prior pivot from April 2026 before the rare earth complex sold off
Why this size: Risk 0.5% of account at the sell-if-it-falls level. Stop is 8.0% below entry ($57.05 to $52.50), so position math = 0.5% / 8.0% = 6.25% of account. Cap at 4% because MP is a single small-cap miner and the 5% single-stock limit should be observed with a margin.
When you'd hold this: 4 to 8 weeks, around House floor votes on H.R. 1468 (CCP Act) and H.R. 5929 (Critical Minerals Act), both placed on Union Calendar within the last 7 days
Congress just put two bills aimed at China on the House voting calendar in the past week. The biggest beneficiary, the only US company that actually mines rare earth metals at scale, is up 5% today but still less than half of its 52-week high. Buy MP Materials.
What just happened
Yesterday, June 15, the House placed bill H.R. 1468, the Protect America's Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act, on its voting calendar1. Six days earlier, on June 9, the same chamber put H.R. 5929, the Critical Minerals Supply Chain Resiliency Act of 2026, on the calendar too2. Being on the calendar means a bill is scheduled for the full House to vote on. It is no longer stuck in committee.
The rare earth basket, which is a group of about 30 companies that mine and process the metals used in magnets for electric cars, wind turbines, and defense gear, jumped almost 10% today. MP Materials, the headline name in that basket, was up 5%. A smaller pre-production peer, USA Rare Earth, was up 4%.
So what
China refines roughly 70% of the world's rare earth metals. If the US wants to make magnets for missiles, fighter jets, and electric cars without asking Beijing first, it needs a domestic supplier. There is essentially one: MP Materials, which owns the Mountain Pass mine in California.
When Congress moves bills like these forward, it usually leads to one or both of: government purchase orders for domestic producers, tax credits for buying US rare earths instead of Chinese ones, or outright restrictions on importing finished magnets from China. Any of those outcomes pushes orders and money toward MP Materials.
The market is starting to figure this out today, which is why the rare earth basket jumped 10%. But MP itself is still trading 43% below its 52-week high of $100. That gap is the trade.
What to do about it
Buy MP Materials at around $57 and don't pay more than $58 for it. Sell if it closes below $52.50, which would mean the rally on today's news has failed and the broader downtrend is still in charge. The first target where you should take some profit is $62, which is the 200-day average price the stock has been stuck below all year. The bigger target, $72, is where the stock traded in April before the rare earth complex sold off.
Risk: if the House calendar is just political theatre and the bills die without a floor vote, the rare earth basket gives back today's gains and MP drifts back to $52. Position size accordingly: this should be a 3 to 5% slice of your account, not your whole portfolio.
What we got right (and wrong) before
Yesterday's politics post called Interactive Brokers a buy at $92.76 on the prediction market regulatory tailwind, and that thesis is still open and intact. Two days ago we said don't chase FanDuel parent FLUT after a sports-betting filing; FLUT is unchanged since. No prior closed call on rare earths, this is a new thread the recent pipeline of bills opened up.
For the nerds
MP at $57.05, up 5.06%, on 3.34M shares versus a 52-week range of $29.58 to $100.25. RSI 38.7 (weakening, approaching oversold) with the price below both the 50-day SMA at $62.12 and 200-day SMA at $62.26. MACD histogram still negative at -0.85, so momentum hasn't turned yet, the trade is a fade of an exhausted downtrend on a regulatory catalyst, not a momentum breakout. FINRA short volume ratio 0.58 on 2.08M total share volume3, so there is short cover fuel if the bills get a floor date. REMX +9.94% to $96.78, USAR +4.02% to $21.74. TSM cluster buy +$868,470 from insiders flagged on OpenInsider this week. Macro backdrop: 10Y Treasury at 4.47%, Fed Funds 3.63%, VIX 16.2, Crypto Fear & Greed 23 (extreme fear), so risk appetite is muted, which means the calendar-driven move has to do its own work.
Not financial advice. Do your own research.
What we passed on
- $REMXPENDING0.0% since pass
The rare earth basket already ran 9.94% today; chasing a one-day move in an exchange-traded fund (a basket of stocks you can buy as one ticker) is the kind of late entry that gets shaken out.
- $USARPENDING0.0% since pass
USA Rare Earth is still pre-production with the magnet plant; the story is real but the company is burning cash and a Mountain Pass producer like MP is the cleaner bet.
- $TSMPENDING0.0% since pass
Insider cluster buy of $868,470 is encouraging1, but TSM is near 52-week highs ($425 vs $450 high) and the China bills cut both ways for a Taiwan-based chipmaker.