Investors have a new rare-earth stock to invest in.

On Wednesday, Rare Earths Americas started trading after pricing its initial public offering at $19 a share on Tuesday.

Shares traded as high as $25, but closed flat at $19, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.5% and 1.2%, respectively. Many stocks jumped on hopes for the end of the Iran war.

Before making its trading debut, REA raised about $63 million. Underwriters may purchase an additional 499,999 shares at the offering price. Current prices give REA a market value of roughly $400 million.

REA is a development-stage mining company run by Donald Swartz, a mining engineer by training. The company will use the money to develop its projects in Georgia and Brazil.

There are 17 rare-earth elements, with REA's deposits targeting the heavier ones. Light elements, including neodymium and praseodymium, are used for permanent magnets. Heavy elements, such as terbium and dysprosium, are used in optical fibers and other things, but are still used in magnets that must operate at high temperatures.

MP Materials, the largest miner of rare earths in the Western Hemisphere, operates the Mountain Pass mine about 50 miles outside of Las Vegas. It is building capacity to process ore and produce rare-earth magnets.

That isn't REA's strategy yet. For now, the company is focused on developing its mine assets. (Mining assets can be valuable. USA Rare Earth bought the Serra Verde mine, which also focuses on heavy rare-earth elements, for $2.8 billion last month.)

Through midday trading, MP stock has gained more than 190% over the past 12 months. Investor sentiment has improved as the U.S. moves aggressively to build a rare-earth supply chain independent of China, which controls about 85% of global rare-earth refining capacity, a position it has used as leverage in recent trade negotiations.

Demand for rare earths is also growing quickly. All of the physical artificial intelligence applications, such as humanoid robots, that investors are excited about will need a lot of rare-earth magnets to operate.

That demand is what REA wants to satisfy -- and why investors were eager to fund the company.