The Daily Breakdown Publications

Sep 19, 2026

Tearing apart the antimony countdown

Sixty-nine days until the export suspension un-suspends itself. The market already called it a resolution. The licensing regime and military end-user clause never moved.

Sep 18, 2026

Tearing apart the COMEX-LME copper inventory split

696,000 metric tonnes stacked in US vaults while LME on-warrant stocks scraped to 90,000 at the August low. The world's copper didn't multiply. It moved. September 28 tells us who positioned it wrong.

Sep 17, 2026

Tearing apart the uranium fuel cycle

Mine output, reactor demand, Big Tech PPAs — that's the dashboard everyone is watching. The engine is at the enrichment plant, and that's where the fuel cycle is actually breaking.

Sep 15, 2026

Tearing apart the silver byproduct trap

AI data centers absorbing 42 million ounces a year. EVs using 67–79% more silver than the gas cars they replace. The demand the panels left behind got filled — and then some.

Sep 14, 2026

Tearing apart the lithium supply flip

The surplus model assumed Chinese mines kept scaling, Greenbushes hit guidance, and BESS demand grew politely. None of those held.

Sep 12, 2026

Tearing apart the tin solder squeeze

Man Maw restarted. The LME warehouse declined to notice. Twenty-one consecutive sessions of stock drawdowns say the headline and the loading docks are reading different reports.

Sep 10, 2026

Tearing apart the gallium chokepoint

China produces 99% of it, the US last made it domestically in 1987, and the trade truce keeping the tap cracked open runs out in seventy-eight days.

Sep 9, 2026

Tearing apart the platinum supply machine

Mine supply flat at 5,553,000 oz — 10% below the pre-COVID average. Three producer countries failing simultaneously, for different reasons. The WPIC quarterly dropped today and the sell side is reading the summary.

Sep 8, 2026

Tearing apart Indonesia's nickel ore quota

BHP Nickel West is still suspended. NPI production costs sit at $15,740 per tonne. LME nickel at $16,800. Class 1 and Class 2 are separating, and the analysts averaging both are describing neither market.

Sep 7, 2026

Tearing apart the Western zinc smelter bottleneck

Treatment charges at an all-time low. The refining layer between mine and market is running in reverse. This is what the demand-story crowd can't explain.

Sep 5, 2026

Tearing apart the DRC cobalt quota machine

226,000 tonnes produced. 96,600 allowed out. The rest is legally stranded — and ARECOMS designed it that way, through at least 2027.

Sep 3, 2026

Tearing apart the titanium sponge chokepoint

The US built the most titanium-hungry aircraft fleet in history — 19 tonnes per 787, north of 20 per F-35 — then closed the last domestic sponge plant in 2024. Imports: 44,000 tonnes a year. Domestic production: zero.