Highlights
- Retail investors are emerging as a powerful force in global finance, now accounting for 25-30% of daily U.S. stock market volume.
- The rare earth industry requires a holistic supply chain approach, from mining to processing to magnet production, with retail investors playing a critical role.
- Strategic retail investing in rare earth companies can contribute to energy independence, industrial strength, and national security.
Retail investors are everyday people—individuals who invest their own money in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, and other financial products. They’re not Wall Street professionals or institutional giants, such as pension funds or hedge funds. Instead, they’re regular citizens managing their portfolios through brokerage accounts like Robinhood, Fidelity, or E*TRADE, as well as Charles Schwab.
Retail investors might invest hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time. Some trade daily; others buy and hold. They’re students, nurses, small business owners, and retirees. What they have in common is this: they are reshaping markets through collective influence.
How Big Is Retail Investing?
Retail investors have grown into a powerful force in global finance. In the United States, there are over 50 million retail investors, many of whom use mobile trading apps. According to FINRA and SEC data, retail trading now accounts for about 25–30% of daily U.S. stock market volume. That’s tens of billions of dollars moving through the market every single day.
Globally, estimates suggest that over 150 million people actively invest in the stock market as individuals. With technology lowering the barriers to entry, this number continues to grow.
Retail investors, once considered minor players, now wield an outsized influence. When they act together or focus on a sector, like during the 2021 GameStop surge or in clean energy stocks, they can move markets, boost companies, or collapse weak ones.
Why Does This Matter for Rare Earths?
Rare earth elements (REEs) are the backbone of modern technology. These 17 critical minerals power everything from electric vehicle motors and wind turbines to smartphones and fighter jets. Yet today, China controls over 80% of the world’s rare earth refining and magnet production.
The West has long depended on China for REEs—not because there aren’t rare earths in the U.S., Australia, or Africa—but because China built the processing infrastructure, supply chains, and pricing control. Now, amid rising geopolitical tensions and trade wars, that reliance poses a significant risk.
Governments are waking up. Defense officials, clean energy planners, and even car companies are seeking new sources of rare earths outside of China. However, building a new rare earth supply chain—one that encompasses mining, refining, separation, alloying, and magnet production—requires time, money, and support.
That’s where retail investors come in.
Junior Miners Need Retail Support
Many of the companies leading the charge to develop rare earth projects outside China are junior mining companies. These are small firms, often publicly traded on exchanges such as the TSX Venture Exchange or ASX, with early-stage projects in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Africa, and other regions.
Junior miners are usually pre-revenue. They explore, map, drill, and do early environmental assessments. They need funding to move from exploration to development and production. While institutional investors sometimes step in, retail investors often provide the earliest and most critical capital.
Without access to retail funding, many of these juniors may never reach the stage where they attract big strategic partners or government support. In fact, retail investors often take on the role of risk-takers, believing in a company’s future when others remain skeptical.
Educating the Retail Crowd
But here’s the challenge: rare earths are complex.
They’re not like gold or silver, which retail investors understand easily. REEs involve a whole system—mining, cracking, separation, oxide purification, alloying,magnet-making, and recycling. Most Western media focus only on the mine, even though the real bottleneck is often in processing and magnet production.
To make smart choices, retail investors need better tools and education. They need to understand that:
- Neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) are critical for permanent magnets.
- China dominates the midstream (processing) and downstream (magnet manufacturing) sectors.
- Not all REE companies are equal—some own mines but can’t refine.
- Strategic partnerships and offtake agreements are key signs of project maturity.
Platforms like Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) aim to solve this problem. We help retail investors follow the full story—highlighting the entire supply chain, tracking project milestones, and separating hype from substance.
The System vs. The Segments
Too often, the rare earth industry is treated in segments. One group focuses on mining. Another track's processors. Still others look at end-users, such as EV makers. This fragmented view makes it hard for retail investors to see the whole picture.
But rare earths are a system, not a silo.
A mine is worthless without processing. Processed oxides are useless without magnet makers. Magnetic materials are only valuable if they meet both performance and sustainability requirements.
To break China’s hold on the market, the West needs to develop the full supply chain, and retail investors must understand how all parts fit together. By directing capital not just to miners, but also to processors, recyclers, and magnet innovators, retail investors can help build a new, resilient REE system.
What’s at Stake?
Without rare earths, the future of clean energy and national security is at risk. If China cuts off exports, the U.S. could face shortages in key defense systems, cars, and power grids. And with tariffs rising, prices could soar.
However, with sufficient capital, public support, and informed investment, we can change course. Countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia possess rare earth deposits. Emerging players, such as Brazil, India, and parts of Africa, are also rich in REEs. What they lack is processing power and market infrastructure.
Retail investors have the power to fill that gap. They can take risks, spot early opportunities, and bring attention to undervalued but strategic companies.
A New Era of Strategic Retail Investing
This isn’t just about returns—it’s about resilience. By directing even a fraction of their capital toward rare earths, retail investors can help reshape the global economy. They can fund companies that are building the future—one magnet, one refinery, one mine at a time.
In doing so, they aren’t just betting on stock prices. They’re investing in energy independence, industrial strength, and national security.
The rare earth revolution won’t succeed without them.
Learn more at Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx)—your guide to the global rare earth economy. See our Projects upstream, midstream and downstream comparisons to help retail investors, rare earth supply chain executives, government officials and others make better more informed decisions concerning this evolving space.
So true! I can sign that – not only as an early investor in Arafura (2006), but also as a long term believer in the necessity of independent material sources in a globalized world.