CAPITAL MARKETS

China talk again lifts rare earth hopefuls

China’s threat to use its rare earths mines to strike back at Washington in the US-China trade war again lifted Australia’s small rare earths sector. China accounted for 80% of rare earth imports by the United States between 2014 and 2017, and rare earths were excluded from recent US tariffs along with some other critical Chinese minerals, but amid talk China could cut off supplies of the critical material to the US, the likes of Hastings Technology Metals and Peak Resources saw double digit share growth.