Geopolitical conflicts cool down, supply and demand patterns reshape, rare metals rebound sharply after steep declines, and the GF ETF for rare metals rises over 3% intraday.

Today, Trump said that U.S.-Iran talks are “possibly already quite close to reaching an agreement.” According to reports, the U.S. side intends to propose a one-month ceasefire, along with 15 negotiation proposals. Driven by expectations of a cooling in geopolitical risks, minor metal prices rebounded, with leading gainers including Yunnan Germanium Industry, Oriental Tantalum Industry, and Northern Rare Earth. Some market analysts believe that ongoing geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East are continuing to push up energy prices and global stagflation expectations; combined with accelerated downstream demand release in areas such as new energy vehicles, energy storage, AI computing power, and humanoid robots, the supply-demand pattern for rare metals is undergoing a structural reshaping.

In the near term, firmness in the rare earth supply side has continued to strengthen. After domestic overall quantity control policies were implemented, production of praseodymium-neodymium oxide has been falling continuously. Although there are exploration projects overseas, progress is generally slow. Countries such as the U.S., Japan, and Australia are promoting cooperative development across the rare earth industry chain, and incremental resources are trending toward being “locked in.” Combined with China’s implementation of export controls on medium and heavy rare earths starting in April 2025, overseas prices for heavy rare earths have surged and price spreads have widened. The U.S., the EU, and others are accelerating the establishment of strategic reserves and joint procurement mechanisms. With mass production of humanoid robots nearing, “buffer stock” demand in the industry has also warmed up, and overseas “reverse stockpiling” has already been transmitted to the domestic market via rare-earth magnet material exports.

On lithium, Zimbabwe’s lithium mine export policy still has uncertainty. In addition, the short-term supply disruptions caused by concentrated shipments of lithium carbonate from Chile arriving at port earlier have kept current lithium salt inventories at a low level—on March 19, SMM statistics showed lithium carbonate inventories at 98,970 tons, down 86 tons month-over-month, with cumulative depletion of 11,000 tons since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, in January and February, the year-on-year growth in output of power and energy storage batteries was 48.8%, and the year-on-year growth in battery charge per vehicle for new energy vehicles was 32.3%, with a clear “no off-season downturn” pattern. Huachuang Securities emphasized that when the May peak season arrives, it may face a substantial supply gap, and upward momentum in lithium carbonate prices is currently building.

CITIC Securities believes that products such as rare earths, tungsten, molybdenum, and cobalt—catalyzed by geopolitical conflicts—will see strategic reserves and military procurement restocking expectations continue to strengthen. Supply-side concentration remains high domestically, and external shocks are hard to replace, making resilience to declines and mid-term allocation value more prominent. Overall, the opportunities for recovery after an oversold correction are worth actively monitoring.

For on-exchange ETFs, as of 13:44 on March 25, 2026, the Rare Metals ETF Guangfa (159608) was up 2.37%, with the intraday high exceeding 3%. Notably, the index tracked by this ETF, the CSI Rare Metals Thematic Index, contains about 14% lithium, the highest among similar funds! Among constituent stocks, Rongjie Co., Ltd. hit the 10cm daily limit; Yunnan Germanium Industry rose 8.58%; Oriental Tantalum Industry increased 5.09%; and stocks such as Grin New Materials and Huayou Cobalt also followed higher. Looking at a longer timeframe, the Rare Metals ETF has gained a total of 82.21% over the past year.

In terms of scale, as of March 24, 2026, the Rare Metals ETF Guangfa (159608) increased its assets by 4.123 billion yuan over the past three months. Since the start of this month, its share count has grown by 138 million shares, with both shares and total assets showing significant growth. Over the last 17 trading days, the fund has attracted a total of 364 million yuan in new funds.

The Rare Metals ETF Guangfa (159608) and its off-exchange links (A: 019874; C: 019875) closely track the CSI Rare Metals Thematic Index, which contains over 16% rare earths, about 13% lithium, and over 12% copper. This provides a one-click allocation to rare earths and nonferrous metals. The index precisely targets the upstream raw material segment of the technology manufacturing and energy transformation industries, with holdings covering key strategic metals such as lithium, rare earths, cobalt, tungsten, germanium, and chromium. This structure offers both growth potential from technological advancement and a valuation anchor through tangible assets, distinguishing it from pure concept stocks.