How We'll Profit from the Government's "Project Vault" VIEW IN BROWSER By Michael Salvatore, Editor, TradeSmith Daily In This Digest: - Uncle Sam is stockpiling these critical metals
- Why this third-place "tech metal" is the best to own right now
- This software unicorn is lighting up our Social Heat Score
On Friday, the U.S. government made its biggest resource play yet… The Trump administration announced an initiative called Project Vault—a strategic stockpile of critical metals with about $12 billion in initial backing. It will cover: - Rare earths – used in magnets for EV motors and defense systems
- Gallium – used in chips and advanced electronics
- Cobalt, lithium, and nickel – used in batteries
This is to counter China’s dominant grip on global supply chains. China controls roughly 69% of global rare earth production. It also dominates processing and refining across battery metals, specialty alloys, and electronics-grade materials. That dominance allows Beijing to weaponize the supply chain, which it did last year with export limits on rare earths. The U.S. now views these metals the same way it viewed oil when it created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve 50 years ago: a matter of national security that we can’t depend on other countries for. The idea is to hold a buffer stock of materials so that manufacturers and defense contractors aren’t left scrambling if there’s a disruption in global supply – like, say, further Chinese export restrictions. For us as investors, the implication is obvious. The government is putting $12 billion into securing the supply of these critical metals. This comes after it took equity stakes in domestic critical metals companies USA Rare Earths (USAR), Trilogy Metals (TMQ), Lithium Americas (LAC), and MP Materials (MP). And the reason is simple. These metals are key raw materials for electric vehicles, high-end electronics, and all manner of defense tech. So today, let’s look at what our data says about the four stocks the White House has taken stakes in, along with one other critical metals company you may not have heard of. Specifically, we’ll lean on TradeSmith’s Short-Term Health indicator – our tool for measuring whether a stock’s short-term trend is strong, stretched, or already breaking down. Recommended Link | | Last summer, Luke Lango told his followers to buy MP Materials before the White House did, giving them the chance to make 100%+. And, on December 5th, he also predicted the White House would invest in USA Rare Earth (USAR)… On January 24th, the Government sent shares soaring after announcing a $1.6 billion stake. Click here to see the next stocks Luke believes the government will target. |  | |
Keep an eye on this critical metals watchlist… If you’re already a subscriber with access to our analytics platform, TradeSmith Finance, I recommend creating a watchlist with the following stocks in it. Make sure to add the column for Short-Term Health. And name it something like “U.S. Minerals Watchlist” to keep it handy. Here’s a watchlist I created of the four critical metals companies the U.S. has already invested in, along with three it hasn’t: lithium miner and specialty chemicals company Albemarle (ALB), uranium and rare earths producer Energy Fuels (UUUU), and critical minerals miner NioCorp Developments (NB). 
Make special note of the Short-Term Health signal in the third column. Green means buy, Yellow means hold, and Red means sell. You’ll also see how long the signal has been active – seven days, more than one week, more than six months, etc. NB, for example, flashed its Short-Term Health Green signal a little more than a week ago. Regular readers know the Short-Term Health indicator is a recent innovation of our foundational Long-Term Health signal. It uses a stock’s volatility “fingerprint” to determine whether it’s a buy or a sell. The only difference is that it’s tuned for more recent price action. We’re looking for times when a stock starts trading with abnormal levels of volatility. This usually signals that a trend shift is about to take place. Fresh Short-Term Health Green signals are important to watch. Testing on S&P 500 stocks over the last 15 years shows that following these signals led to an average annualized return of 23.4% over an average hold time of two months. Red signals saw an average loss of 2.5% over the same stretch. Right now, all but one stock, MP, is in the Green. That means the recent slide in many of these stocks last Friday – see the 1-day change column – is a dip worth buying as this theme continues to develop. This "third place" metal acted like a winner on Friday… In the Olympics, athletes are awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal for their performance in the games. Bronze is for third place. Well, the tables turned for the medalists on Friday. While gold and silver dived, the price of copper (the key element in bronze alloys) barely flinched. Silver was down as much as 35%. Gold fell nearly 13%. But copper dropped just 6%. Why? Copper isn’t a “precious” metal or a traditional store of value. But lately, it’s been on a tear for the same reasons as critical minerals. It’s used in advanced technologies… especially AI datacenters. Datacenters are wired with copper for power distribution, cooling, and data connections. And AI datacenters use as much as 50,000 tons of copper each. That’s up to 10 times as much as the datacenters built before the AI revolution began. Remember, Amazon just struck a deal with major copper miner Rio Tinto to secure copper supply for its cloud-computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS). That’s a major piece of evidence that copper is another “tech metal” worth watching. Below is a group of five major copper miners along with all the same metrics we looked at earlier: 
Those companies are major American copper producer Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), Australian resource giant BHP Group (BHP), Swiss commodity trading and mining company Glencore (GLEN), Latin America-focused Southern Copper (SCCO), and British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto (RIO). All are in their Short-Term Health Green Zones. And two of them, FCX and SCCO, slid more than copper prices on Friday. That may offer a compelling entry point to join in on this trend. Finally, let's check in on Andy and Landon Swan's Social Heat Score… Most stock market analysts focus on price-to-earnings ratios, balance sheets, and the like. But TradeSmith’s Andy and Landon Swan focus instead on website visits, app downloads, search trends, and a treasure trove of social media chatter for their edge. Their Social Heat Score distills all of this market intelligence into a simple 0-100 rating. The higher the score, the more popular a company is with consumers – be they retail or enterprise. A low score means its brand is struggling or downright unpopular. It’s a pulse check on whether a brand is trending positively or negatively among users online. And the Swans have used it to give their subscribers the chance to close out gains of 145% on digital learning platform Stride (LRN)… 461% on nuclear pick Oklo (OKLO)… and even 556% on trading app Robinhood Markets (HOOD) in their MegaTrends advisory. It's always a treat to check in on the top-ranked Social Heat Score stocks on TradeSmith Finance. It’s a treasure trove of up-and-coming brands. And it often offers clues that a lesser-known company is capturing an edge not yet seen on its balance sheet. Here are the stocks with the highest Social Heat Scores alongside their Short-Term Health signals. 
We have buy-now-pay-later platform Sezzle (SEZL), cloud hosting company DigitalOcean (DOCN), e-commerce storefront software Shopify (SHOP), local business reviews site Yelp (YELP), and digital banking company SoFi Technologies (SOFI). These companies are proving wildly popular with consumers and businesses. But one in particular, DigitalOcean, catches my eye for being the only top-ranked Social Heat Score stock to be up over the last week and month… and on a Short-Term Health Green signal. DigitalOcean is a cloud computing company built for developers, startups, and small businesses. It offers simple, low-cost tools like virtual servers and databases to help users build and scale apps. The company is profitable, and its stock is up more than double from its 2025 lows. And since its Short-Term Health Green Zone signal on Aug. 28 of last year, the stock is up nearly 80%. 
DOCN is something of a unicorn for being one of the few software stocks outperforming right now. That, combined with its strong momentum and high Social Heat Score, make it a must-watch company. To building wealth beyond measure, 
Michael Salvatore
Editor, TradeSmith Daily | 
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