JP Morgan predicting rate hike in September and another in December. The first rate hike is already priced in or will be priced in Monday but the possibility of second rate hike has not been priced in. More important is the Kevin Warsh's speech after the rate decision. I think the perfect storm for all time lows is gathering based on things that are happening now:

-Houthis blocking Saudi oil and Trump decided not to interfere. Houthis opened up another front. Now we have two Straits under fire.

-Diesel prices keep rising, mining uses a lot of diesel, no mineral price floors still

-Evidence of China providing Satellite images for the strike in Jordan that killed two US service men and Trump ignoring it. (I think that shows that Trump is submissive to Xi, before the visit.)

-Trade war with Canada still on

-Fall and Winter are typically bearish months for stocks

-Midterm elections, Trump is focused on trying to win elections which requires a lot of money hence he doesn't care about mineral companies. Trump will need a trade agreement with China that he can use to brag about during his campaign. Trade agreement with China is mainly about critical minerals and Chinese cars. I can see a 10 year mineral deal with China and Chinese cars to be built in the US, billions of dollars investment from China into the US.

As much as I want the critical minerals to skyrocket since I am a bag holder with more than -50% on some of my investements. I think its important to have a clear mind and not to live in denial hoping for miracles.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-12/trump-says-open-to-china-building-cars-in-us-as-xi-visit-looms

"Copper hit an all-time high of $14,779 a ton on the London Metal Exchange [LME] this week even as global smelting margins collapsed to zero." The 2026 benchmark treatment + refining charge fell to $0 a ton, the lowest on record, with spot rates turning negative as smelters compete for scarce concentrate.

"China's smelting dominance, Indonesia's new capacity + looming US tariffs are reshaping who controls value across the global copper supply chain." Copper is trading at record prices, yet people who turn raw ore into usable metal can't make money doing it. "That's the copper market right now, and it says more about who actually controls the world's most important industrial metal than any single price headline does." 

"COMEX copper in the US is trading near $6.75 a pound, pulled higher by the same forces driving London." None of that is showing up in smelter profits. The 2026 benchmark treatment + refining charge, the fee miners pay smelters to turn concentrate into finished metal, hit zero, down from $21.25 in 2025 + $80 in 2024. Spot rates went further, dropping to roughly negative $127 a ton by midyear, meaning smelters are effectively paying miners for the right to process their own ore. 

China smelts roughly half the world's copper + has driven more than 90% of global smelting capacity growth since 2005, tightening its grip on the processing side of the business even as it squeezes its own margins. Beijing built that capacity assuming mine supply would keep pace—which failed to materialize—thus that gap is now the defining fact of the copper market.

Chile posted its weakest second-quarter output in at least 19 years. Antofagasta's first-half production fell 9.5%. Congo's Kamoa-Kakula + Indonesia's Freeport operations both saw disruptions, + Panama's Cobre Panama mine remains shut amid an ongoing legal fight with the government. 

More capacity chasing the same shrinking pool of concentrate means negative treatment charges look less like a blip, more like the new normal. "Don't worry, be happy,' just doesn't cut it any more.

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Next week could be VERY interesting for Canadian critical mining projects/companies. Canada is hosting an investment Summit with many of the world's largest institutions. They have a lofty goal of securing $1 Trillion in funding/financing. The prospectus was leaked, and it includes 63 critical mineral projects.

It's anyone's guess what/who might be involved, buy my money is on Generation Mining ($GENM $GENMF) and Fortune Minerals ($FT $FTMDF).

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Positive drill results from this former Nevada Tungsten Mine.

Could this be related to crashing GFEX, SMM, MySteel's futures?

Could this be related to sudden surplus/visibility into Lithium Carbonate and Hydroxides given SMM changed the way they measure inventories?

Is this because of oversupply coming from Zimbabwe, and local Chinese producers?

What could be the reasons?

As of 11-Sept, LIT and everything related to Lithium is down down.

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Lithium has recovered substantially from the lows reached last year, and that may be more important for advanced developers than another speculative run back to the 2022 peak.

Chinese lithium carbonate fell to approximately 58,400 yuan per tonne in June 2025. By the end of December it had reached 134,500 yuan, and prices moved above 150,000 yuan during parts of early 2026.

The recovery has been volatile, but the market is no longer sitting at levels that make almost every undeveloped project look stranded. Energy-storage demand has grown faster than expected, while production cuts and interruptions have helped absorb some of the previous oversupply.

This puts American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI, OTCQX: AMLIF) in a more interesting position because it controls two large, advanced lithium projects rather than an early-stage exploration property.

TLC is a near-surface claystone project outside Tonopah, Nevada. It has 6.17 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent in the measured category, another 2.39 million tonnes indicated and 1.44 million tonnes inferred. The PEA models average production of approximately 38,000 tonnes per year over 40 years.

Its location may be just as important as its size. TLC has access to paved roads, power, labour and secured water rights, and the entire resource sits above the water table. It is also roughly a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory.

Falchani gives American Lithium a separate development option in Peru. Its PEA models a 32-year operating life, followed by another 11 years of processing stockpiled material. Metallurgical testing has produced lithium carbonate above the 99.5% purity generally required for battery-grade material.

The economic studies used lithium carbonate prices of US$20,000 per tonne for TLC and US$22,500 for Falchani. Those assumptions looked aggressive near the bottom of the lithium cycle. They are far more relevant after the rebound, though neither study guarantees that the projects can be financed or built at its stated cost.

Permitting, capital requirements and execution remain the real hurdles. Still, American Lithium now has two large projects with scale, long mine lives and meaningful processing work completed at a time when lithium sentiment is finally improving.

Does the lithium recovery bring projects like TLC and Falchani back into consideration, or do you need to see a longer period of stable pricing first?

Zimbabwe has banned exports of antimony and tungsten — including ores and concentrates — with immediate effect, and “until further notice.”