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Rare Earth Stock Soars After Showing Up on 60 Minutes Last Night

Remember Molycorp?
Neodymium is displayed at the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, on May 5, 2010. A generation after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made mastering neodymium and 16 other elements known as rare earths a priority, China has cornered the market, with far-reaching effects ranging from job losses and global trade to U.S. national security.

Neodymium is displayed at the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, on May 5, 2010. A generation after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made mastering neodymium and 16 other elements known as rare earths a priority, China has cornered the market, with far-reaching effects ranging from job losses and global trade to U.S. national security.

Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

The stock of Molycorp spiked on Monday morning. The company mines rare earth metals in the Mojave Desert. 

Why the sudden interest? Because Molycorp and its chairman, Constantine Karayannopoulos, were the stars of a 60 Minutes story on Sunday night about rare earth metals and their prevalence in such things as miniaturization, electronics, fiberoptics, and other technologies that have come to dominate modern life.