A Cautionary Rare Earths Tale Can Be Found in Molycorp's Rise and Fall
- Fear of Chinese export cuts has sent prices of elements higher
- Miner went bust in 2015 after bursting of rare earths bubble
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Investors with long memories might be forgiven for a sense of deja vu over warnings about rare earths and Chinese supply.
Chinese state media reports grabbed global attention Wednesday as they dropped heavy hints about export cuts. Rare earths -- a group of 17 obscure, hard-to-pronounce elements used in high-tech and military applications -- are produced for the most part in China. The U.S. has just one mine, and that was at the center of a cautionary tale of commodity boom and bust earlier this decade.