In short: Named unprompted as the position he most regrets not sizing: "tungsten I think is my biggest mistake." The demand case is literal consumption by war: "Russia, Ukraine was constantly blowing shit up made of tungsten. And now in the Middle East they're blowing shit up made of tungsten. Just vaporizing it. So the demand is absolutely there. We're getting pent-up demand… shortages with missiles" — with Trump "saying he wants to move to a military economy" on top. Still a live view, not a post-mortem: "I feel like tungsten is still great here."
Tungsten is the densest common metal with the highest melting point, which makes it the material of choice for armour-piercing penetrators, missile components and industrial cutting tools. China controls the large majority of supply.
The demand case McCracken makes is the simplest kind: the material is being destroyed, not stockpiled. "Russia, Ukraine was constantly blowing shit up made of tungsten. And now in the Middle East, they're blowing shit up made of tungsten. Just vaporizing it." Every munition fired is tungsten that has to be mined again. Layer on Western rearmament and a US administration talking about a "military economy," and demand goes up while supply sits behind a geopolitical wall.
He is unusually direct that he got the sizing wrong — "tungsten I think is my biggest mistake… I should have had more" — and equally direct that the miss does not invalidate the thesis: "I feel like tungsten is still great here." That distinction (a missed entry versus a broken thesis) is the whole point of the segment.
It also illustrates why he prefers raw materials to the companies that use them: as Beylo notes, there is almost no way to buy pure exposure to missile rearmament through a defence contractor, because every prime is a conglomerate of unrelated programmes. The metal is the pure play.
In short: The squeeze has tightened since early June: Japan's supply collapsed (Samsung/SK Hynix/TSMC cut off), Rotterdam APT ~9× year-ago, China refines >80% so processing is the real chokepoint, and Washington is funding an ex-China chain (Mactung, two Kazakh projects). The dip from the March high is "temporary"; the July 13 Section 232 deadline could widen the gap. Rewards the few producers that can both mine and process outside China.
Tungsten is the metal with the highest melting point on the periodic table, which makes it essential for things nothing else can do — the tips of armor-piercing missiles, cutting tools, and the tiny wiring inside computer chips. China mines about 80% of it and, more importantly, does more than 80% of the refining that turns raw ore into usable material. "APT" (ammonium paratungstate) is the standard refined form whose price everyone watches; outside China it now costs roughly nine times what it did a year ago.
The problem just got worse: China cut Japan off, which knocked out the supply that chipmakers like TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix rely on. Because the U.S. stopped mining tungsten in 2015 and can't quickly rebuild — especially the refining step — Washington is throwing money at mines and processors in Canada and Kazakhstan, and the Pentagon is legally banned from buying Chinese tungsten starting in 2027 even as the Iran war burns through tungsten-laden missiles. Prins's takeaway: the recent price dip is a temporary lull inside a multi-year shortage, and the companies that can both mine and process tungsten outside China are the winners. (Her specific stock pick is behind the paywall.)
In short: Repriced ~900% in 12 months on Chinese export controls + U.S. defense law; can't be substituted, mined fast enough or imported meaningfully outside China. The July 13 Section 232 report "has no bearish outcome," and the ~14% dip is a buying window inside the most bullish setup in two decades.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.