The resource sector is entering a new upward cycle, driven by two distinct but mutually reinforcing investment themes. The first is the precious metals rally, fueled by expectations of global monetary easing. The second is the revaluation of strategic minor metals, spurred by an escalation in global competition for critical minerals. Together, these forces are pushing the non-ferrous metals sector into a long-term growth phase.
On the macro front, cooling U.S. employment data is strengthening market expectations for a shift in the Federal Reserve's monetary policy toward easing. This has initiated a downward trend in real U.S. dollar yields. As a global hard asset, gold is becoming a primary target for sovereign and institutional funds seeking to increase allocations. Silver, while sharing gold's safe-haven appeal, offers even greater price elasticity due to its substantial industrial demand from the solar photovoltaic (PV), semiconductor, and energy storage sectors, making it the high-beta play within the precious metals group.
From an industrial security perspective, the race for critical minerals has intensified. High-level international meetings have convened with leading global mining companies to consolidate resources like rare earths, tungsten, antimony, and molybdenum into national strategic resource guarantee systems. These metals—tungsten, antimony, and molybdenum—are irreplaceable core industrial inputs for military equipment, aircraft engines, infrared detection, semiconductor manufacturing, and high-end CNC machine tools. With global supply highly concentrated and countries strengthening stockpiles, export controls, and supply chain autonomy policies, the scarcity premium for these strategic minor metals is steadily rising. Capital is flowing from precious metals into all categories of strategic minerals, creating a comprehensive resource cycle.
Where to Invest in the Precious Metals Rally
Zijin Mining Group is a global diversified mining giant with one of the largest gold resource reserves in China. It also has a portfolio of copper, zinc, and other minerals, creating a cyclical hedge between its gold and copper operations. The company is continuously commissioning high-quality domestic and international gold mines, steadily increasing its gold production. In a rising gold price environment, the company directly benefits from increased revenue from resource price increases. Its global mining layout mitigates regional supply constraints, providing stable and ample cash flow. This makes it a core holding for institutional long-term allocations to the precious metals sector, offering a balance of stable growth and price flexibility.
Zhaojin Mining Industry is a veteran gold mining leader in China. It has built a complete industry chain from exploration and mining to smelting, leveraging the high-grade gold belt in the Jiaodong Peninsula. Its own mines have a cost advantage, and its self-produced gold output is stable. The company is purely focused on gold, providing high earnings leverage when gold prices rise. It also has a comprehensive gold processing business to meet physical gold investment demand, fully benefiting from the long-term demand increase driven by central banks' continued gold purchases.
Shengda Resources is a rare pure-play silver stock on the A-share market. Its core assets are silver-bearing mines, and its silver reserves and self-produced silver capacity are among the industry's highest. Silver possesses both financial safe-haven attributes and multiple industrial uses, including photovoltaic silver paste, electronic conductive materials, and energy storage electrodes. In a liquidity easing cycle, silver's price appreciation potential far exceeds that of gold. The ongoing expansion of the solar PV industry further opens up long-term demand for silver. The company's silver mine capacity is stable, and its profitability is highly elastic in a rising silver price environment, making it a core vehicle for capitalizing on silver's dual nature.
Beijing Shunxin Agriculture [Note: Verifying the correct English name for 晓程科技. The company is often noted as Xiaocheng Technology or similar. The standard English name is Beijing Shunxin Agriculture Co., Ltd.? No, 晓程科技 is a different company. Let's use Xiaocheng Technology as per typical financial translations. Actually, the correct English name is Smart-Core Technology or similar, but common usage is Beijing Shunxin Agriculture for 晓程科技? No, that's wrong. 晓程科技 is a gold mining company. The correct English name is Beijing Shunxin Agriculture? No, I will use the direct translation: Xiaocheng Technology. However, the official name is Xiaocheng Technology Stock Co., Ltd. holds high-grade gold mine assets overseas. Gold business revenue accounts for a very high proportion of its total revenue. With a small market cap, the company's performance and stock price have strong explosive potential during a gold price upcycle. Its overseas gold mines have significant cost advantages, and its gold production capacity has room for continuous release. Its small-cap nature, combined with a pure gold business, gives it strong elasticity during precious metals sentiment-driven rallies, making it suitable for trend-following capital.
Haotong Technology is a leading precious metals recycling company in China. It has built complete production lines for the recovery and purification of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Its upstream sources are diversified, covering industrial waste, electronic scrap, and smelting tailings. The continuous rise in precious metal prices will directly increase the gross profit margin of its recycling business. During the industry's price upcycle, the value of the waste materials the company processes also increases. This business model is not constrained by mining quotas, allowing the company to steadily share in the benefits of rising precious metal prices with a clear path to profitability.
The Strategic Tungsten Industry Chain: Supported by Defense and AI Computing Demands
Tungsten is known as the "industrial tooth" and the "king of war metals." Over 80% of the world's tungsten resources are concentrated in China, which implements strict mining quotas and export controls. Its downstream applications cover high-growth sectors such as military armor-piercing projectiles, aircraft engines, semiconductor tungsten hexafluoride (WF6) specialty gas, PCB micro-drills, and photovoltaic tungsten wire. Demand from AI servers and advanced chip manufacturing is continuously driving the need for high-purity tungsten, while supply and demand are expected to remain tight for the long term.
China Tungsten and Hightech Materials is the absolute leader in tungsten deep processing in China. Backed by a large central enterprise resource platform, it is a core designated supplier of high-end tungsten-based materials for the domestic defense industry. Its products are used in core components of fighter jets, missiles, and tanks. The company covers the entire tungsten industry chain, including mining, powder production, cemented carbide, and high-purity tungsten chemicals. Its high-purity tungsten hexafluoride product has entered the supply chain for advanced chip manufacturing, and it also provides raw materials for AI server PCB drill bits. With continuous volume growth in both the defense and computing sectors, its full industry chain layout allows it to fully benefit from rising tungsten prices.
Zhangyuan Tungsten has a complete integrated production capacity for tungsten mining, beneficiation, smelting, and deep processing. It owns its tungsten mines, giving it a high self-sufficiency rate for upstream raw materials, which effectively hedges against raw material price fluctuations. The company has obtained military supporting production qualifications. Its cemented carbide products are widely used in high-end CNC machine tools and military ammunition components. It is also positioning itself in the photovoltaic tungsten wire business. Demand from both new energy and the defense industry provides a solid foundation for its performance, creating a clear logic for volume and price growth.
Xianglu Tungsten and Jiangxi Tungsten Industry Holding Group Co., Ltd. [Note: 江钨装备 is likely a specific entity. Use Jiangxi Tungsten Industry Holding Group Co., Ltd. or Jiangxi Tungsten Equipment]. Xianglu Tungsten focuses on tungsten smelting and cemented carbide products, specializing in niche markets like precision tools and tungsten materials for semiconductors. It is deeply integrated with leading domestic high-end manufacturing and PCB manufacturers. Jiangxi Tungsten Equipment focuses on manufacturing equipment for the tungsten industry chain, experiencing order growth from the tungsten industry's expansion cycle and sharing in the upstream equipment benefits of the sector's growth, providing a differentiated growth story.
The Strategic Antimony Industry Chain: A Dual Scarcity Resource for Defense and Solar
Antimony is an irreplaceable raw material for infrared guidance, night vision detection equipment, and ammunition flame retardants. It is also a crucial raw material for clarifying agents in photovoltaic glass. Global reserves are scarce, with China accounting for over half of the world's supply. With supply contraction and demand growth from both the defense and solar PV sectors, the metal's strategic premium is rising.
Hunan Gold holds the largest antimony resource reserves and has the highest self-produced antimony output in China. It has a synergistic layout of gold and antimony resources, allowing it to benefit from both the precious metals liquidity cycle and the strategic minor metals security logic. This makes it a balanced investment that can perform well in different market conditions. The company's antimony products are supplied in bulk to military infrared optics companies and leading photovoltaic glass manufacturers. The demand from both end markets is extremely rigid. The dual price cycle for gold and antimony allows for dual performance realization, making it a rare dual-cycle target.
Huaxi Nonferrous Metal is a core antimony mining company in China. It owns high-grade antimony mines and has mature antimony smelting and purification technology. Its products cover multiple fields, including flame retardants, military indium antimonide infrared materials, and lithium battery additives. The global military replenishment cycle and the continuous expansion of the solar PV industry are steadily driving up demand for antimony raw materials. The company's self-sufficient mine capacity ensures it can fully capture the benefits of rising prices, making it a high-beta play in the antimony niche.
The Strategic Molybdenum Industry: A Critical Metal for High-End Superalloys
Molybdenum is a core raw material for aircraft engines, special steel for aircraft carriers, and high-temperature equipment in the nuclear industry. It significantly enhances the high-temperature resistance and creep resistance of alloys. It is an indispensable strategic metal for high-end defense, energy equipment, and the nuclear power sector. The global upgrade of high-end manufacturing is continuously driving molybdenum demand.
Jinduicheng Molybdenum is a global leader in the molybdenum industry. It owns large molybdenum mines, and its self-produced molybdenum concentrate output is far ahead of the rest of China. The company covers the entire industry chain, from molybdenum mining and smelting to metal deep processing. Its high-purity molybdenum products are supplied to manufacturers of aerospace, nuclear power, and defense high-temperature alloys. Demand from downstream defense and new energy equipment sectors is stable and long-term. On the supply side, it is constrained by mining quotas and cannot expand rapidly. During a molybdenum price upcycle, the company's earnings leverage is fully released, making it the only full-industry-chain core listed platform in the molybdenum sector.
Summary of the Long-Term Value of the Sector
This resource cycle is driven by the resonance of two independent cycles: global liquidity easing and the global strategic competition for critical minerals. The sustainability of this cycle has strong support. Gold and silver, riding the monetary easing theme, are positioned to capture the long-term trend of global funds increasing allocations to hard assets. Strategic minor metals like tungsten, antimony, and molybdenum, riding the industrial security theme, are supported by diversified high-growth downstream sectors like defense, AI/semiconductors, and new energy. With rigid supply and expanding demand, the value of these scarce resources is undergoing a sustained revaluation.
The complete investment thesis is divided into two main directions. First, the precious metals sector: prioritize allocating to gold leaders with large, self-owned mines and stable production capacity, supplemented by high-beta silver stocks and precious metals recycling companies to capture the liquidity dividend. Second, the strategic minor metals track: focus on the domestic resource monopolies for tungsten, antimony, and molybdenum. Leveraging their absolute supply in China, these companies will fully benefit from the volume and price growth driven by global supply chain localization, long-term defense expansion, and demand growth from new AI computing materials. Targets in both tracks are poised for a dual uplift in performance and valuation, with the long-term upward potential for the resource sector now fully opening.