For something called “rare” earths, stories about them are pretty common these days.

Here’s the latest: The White House is poised to create a $12 billion stockpile of critical minerals like gallium and cobalt in an effort to reduce US reliance on China, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.

Dubbed Project Vault, which sounds like a nefarious government plan to create the world’s greatest pole vaulter ahead of the summer Olympics, the idea has merit. The US already has a strategic oil stockpile, and in fact there’s already a national stockpile of critical minerals dedicated solely to the country’s defense industry needs. The difference is that Project Vault would be for civilian needs, focused on accruing critical minerals and rare earths for automakers, tech companies, and US manufacturers.

The project already has the backing of several major corporations who’d love nothing more than a steady supply of critical minerals, including General Motors, Boeing, GE Vernova, Corning, and more.

Critical calm

Critical minerals are just that: critical. They’re found in everything from cellphones to automobiles to missiles. The problem is that China controls an estimated 85% of the world’s critical mineral processing capacity, and while trade war rhetoric between the US and China has cooled lately, the Trump administration has made it clear that securing critical minerals is vital to national security.

That’s why the government has made deals with the likes of MP Materials, USA Rare Earth, Trilogy Metals, and Lithium Americas over the last year—and every time a new deal was announced, it would bolster an individual stock.

But today’s news is good for miners across the board: Project Vault not only underscores the country’s commitment to securing critical minerals beyond piecemeal, individual investments, it will also create more demand for mining these minerals in general. And if the trade war heats up once again, it could serve to keep critical mineral prices steady, in turn keeping business cycles for miners less volatile.

Now if only the news cycle was a bit less volatile.—MR

🟢 What’s up

• Sandisk leapt another 15.44% after Bernstein analysts raised the price target for the red-hot memory storage stock to $1,000.
• Palantir Technologies gained 0.83% as investors anticipate good news during its earnings announcement this evening.
• Walmart rose 4.13% and Target rallied 3.85% on the first day of work for each company’s new CEO.

What’s down

• Disney’s experiences business—think theme parks and cruises—hit $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever, but shares still sank 7.4% without news of a Bob Iger successor.
• Robinhood Markets tumbled 9.62% as investors worried that the end of the NFL season would be a blow to the broker’s fast-growing prediction markets business.
• Over the weekend, Oracle announced it’s raising up to $50 billion to help the data-center giant build out more infrastructure. Shares sank 2.75% today.
• Coterra Energy lost 3.6% on the news that rival Devon Energy is buying the shale company for $21.4 billion.
• Crypto stocks sank following bitcoin’s big weekend selloff: Coinbase lost 3.53%, Mara Holdings fell 4%, and Strategy dropped 6.71%.
• Chinese EV maker BYD sank 6.87% on reports of lower auto sales for a fifth month in a row, yanking the rest of the EV industry down with it.
• Tesla tumbled 1.98% along with its peers, though the news that self-driving competitor Waymo is looking to raise $16 billion at a valuation of $110 billion only pushed shares lower.

Nvidia is the core of the AI trade, sitting snug in the center of a web of massive deals with companies like Microsoft, CoreWeave, xAI, and more. While it’s been great for Nvidia and its shareholders, any indication that one of those agreements might be in trouble is taken by the market as a sign that the entire AI house of cards could be collapsing.

The bears got a bit hungrier today thanks to reports that Nvidia’s contract with OpenAI is on the rocks. First reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the agreement was for Nvidia to invest $100 billion in OpenAI and build 10 gigawatts of computing power for the startup, while OpenAI would lease chips from Nvidia in exchange. The team-up was announced last September, but in the months since, leaders from both companies haven’t proceeded any further than the initial stages of an agreement. In fact, back in November, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang noted that there was “no assurance” the deal would ever be complete.

Investors shrugged his words off at the time, content to let the AI trade continue to chug along. But with rising fears that circular investments among chip companies like Nvidia and AMD with hyperscalers like Meta Platforms and Alphabet are fueling a bubble, Huang was forced to change his tune a bit this weekend. “We will invest a great deal of money, probably the largest investment we’ve ever made,” he reassured reporters.

According to the WSJ, those public remarks bely Huang’s private comments that OpenAI lacks discipline, and that he’s concerned competitors like Alphabet and Anthropic are quickly catching up. With OpenAI likely to go public later this year, CEO Sam Altman will soon need to reassure Huang and regular investors alike that all is well.—MR

It’s a big week for sports, with the Six Nations championship beginning on Thursday, the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday, and the Super Bowl on Sunday.

But the biggest event of them all is yet to come: The World Cup. The games don't kick off until June, but for soccer fans, the excitement is already palpable. While only one team can bring home the final ‘W,’ according to JPMorgan, there’s a slew of industries that will be raking in big bucks as the world’s attention turns to soccer—and investors who position themselves now could score a tidy profit.

Tourney talk

Ticket resellers are poised to be the biggest winners of them all. Fans have requested over 500 million tickets to World Cup games, but there’s only about 7 million available, meaning there’s going to be some serious scalping action in the months ahead. The event is expected to bring in between $1 billion and $1.8 billion in the ticket resale market, and according to JPMorgan, the company that benefits the most from all that reselling is StubHub, which could own up to $800 million of that massive market.

Another sector set to see a boost is lodging and transportation. Airbnb is projected to be the biggest winner there, according to JPMorgan: not only does the company have an official FIFA partnership, but it’s likely to see roughly $330 million in bookings as fans travel to watch their teams. Booking.com and Expedia are expected to benefit from travel, too. And Uber and Lyft should see a boom in business, while fans watching the games at home will give Doordash a boost.

Tickets and travel are obvious, but two other big winners of the World Cup will focus their efforts on your screens rather than around stadiums. The event is going to be a major driver of global ad spending, which means Meta Platforms and Alphabet, the two biggest advertising platforms on the planet, will reap the rewards: JPMorgans expects Alphabet to generate over $900 million in extra revenue from the World Cup, while Meta should bring in over $550 million.

JPMorgan also highlighted a basket of 30 international companies that could get a boost from the competition, including Anheuser-Busch, Heineken, Adidas, and more.

Playing the long game

While analysts foresee huge opportunities for these companies to make money, there are factors that could thwart their projections. For example, there are political risks, given the US has travel restrictions on at least four countries competing. Fears of immigration enforcement could also deter fans, according to Barron’s.

“There are also some displacement/substitution factors to consider as some consumers may forgo a concert or two for the World Cup, and some countries could actually experience reduced travel/vacations short-term while the World Cup is running and people stay close to home,” the JPMorgan strategists wrote.

Let the games begin.—LB

• SpaceX and xAI are going to merge.
• Another government shutdown means another delayed economic report: The BLS jobs report scheduled for Friday has been postponed.
• The US and India struck a trade deal: India will stop buying Russian oil, and the US will lower its reciprocal tariff rate to 18%.
• 62% of homebuyers purchased a house below its asking price last year, the highest since 2019, as the housing market shifts in favor of buyers.
• Elon Musk bailed on Delaware, and told other business leaders to do the same. Nobody listened to him.
• Ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley’s professional reputation has been further tarnished as new emails with Jeffrey Epstein come to light.
• Organized crime is going digital: Chinese organized crime networks laundered $16.1 billion through cryptocurrency transactions last year.
• World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto company, inked a secret $500 million deal with the ‘Spy Sheikh’ of the United Arab Emirates just days before the president’s inauguration.

Economic announcements: ISM services report, and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey

Earnings reports: AMD, Merck, PepsiCo, Amgen, Pfizer, Eaton, Nintendo, Emerson Electric, TransDigm, Mondelez, Chipotle, Electronic Arts, PayPal, Corteva, Take-Two, Super Micro Computer, and Foot Locker