Rare earth stocks have become one of the most searched corners of the resource market, and for good reason. The seventeen rare earth elements sit inside the magnets, batteries, and electronics that power everything from electric vehicles to defense systems, and much of the world’s supply runs through a single country. That concentration has made rare earths a recurring theme in financial newsletters, including Jim Rickards’s “$150 Trillion Birthright” presentation.

Rickards, a former general counsel at Long-Term Capital Management, best-selling author on currency and geopolitics, and editor of model Press’s Strategic Intelligence letter, argues that President Trump “opened 650 million acres of federal land containing an estimated $150 trillion in buried minerals.” The pitch then points to three “MDP” companies, mineral-discovery-technology plays, that he says could dominate the search for those deposits. Here is the honest read on how rare earths actually fit that story.

The Rare Earth Opportunity Is Real

The policy direction behind rare earths is not invented. Washington has spent years trying to rebuild a domestic supply chain for critical minerals, rare earths included. The Department of Defense and the Department of Energy have funded processing and separation projects, and the administration has pushed to expand access to federal land and offshore acreage. For investors, the question has never been whether rare earths matter. It is which companies actually benefit, and when.

That is where the Birthright pitch gets interesting. Instead of pointing to miners or processors, it points to the survey companies that map the ground before mining begins. The logic is that whoever holds the patents on discovery technology will be positioned to benefit first.

The Survey Angle

The presentation claims mining companies will be “legally required to find the exact location of these mineral deposits BEFORE they can dig a single hole.” That is broadly true in practice. You locate before you disturb. The three picks are “The Pioneer,” Geospace Technologies, a maker of land and marine seismic equipment; “The Wildcat,” TGS ASA, the Norwegian energy-data firm from the 2023 TGS and PGS merger; and “The Innovator,” MIND Technology, which builds offshore seismic hardware under the Seamap brand.

The complication is that all three are oil and gas seismic companies first. Their revenue has tracked energy exploration budgets and the oil price for decades. Mineral discovery, rare earths included, is a small part of what they do. For a fuller picture of the rare earth market, our rare earth stocks coverage and our critical minerals strategy explainer map the real players.

The Scoreboard Since the Tease

The presentation assigned big numbers to its picks: “4,800% gain potential” for Geospace Technologies, “1,520% gain potential” for TGS ASA, and “4,340% gain potential” for MIND Technology. It also claimed Geospace Technologies had institutional ownership of “only 8%,” implying early entry before the big money arrives. Our teardown put the actual figure near 67%.

The June 24, 2025 catalyst tied to unlocking Phase II came and went with no surge. Since the tease, Geospace Technologies is down 73.8% and MIND Technology down 56.8%, while TGS ASA is up 8.9%. The rare earth theme may be real, but these particular stocks have not been the way to play it so far.

What the Honest Read Says

Rare earths deserve a place in the critical minerals conversation, and the pick-and-shovel logic of survey companies is a sound way to think about exploration generally. The gap is between that sound logic and these specific stocks, which remain oil and gas businesses in a mining costume. For the deep-water side of the same story, our deep-sea mining explainer covers the nodule harvest and its timeline.

The offer behind all of this is the Situation Report at $1,995 per year with no refunds. The companies are legitimate and the mechanism is real, but the timing and the framing deserve care. Treat rare earth exposure as a long, policy-driven theme, and look for evidence of actual exploration spending before treating any survey stock as a secret about to surge.

The supply chain is the reason rare earths keep resurfacing as a theme. China controls the majority of rare earth mining, separation, and magnet production, which leaves defense and technology buyers dependent on a single country. Washington has responded with funding for domestic mines and processing plants, and with an effort to reopen federal land and offshore acreage. That policy push is real, and it is why the theme keeps appearing in newsletters. The gap in the Birthright pitch is that its three picks are not rare earth companies. They are seismic survey firms that would benefit from any exploration boom, mineral or otherwise, but whose rare earth exposure is indirect at best.

Investors who want direct rare earth exposure should look past the survey names to the actual miners, refiners, and magnet makers that turn raw ore into usable product. That is where the supply chain bottleneck sits, and it is where the policy money has been flowing. The survey firms in the Birthright pitch are one step removed from all of it, useful if exploration spending rises but not a direct bet on rare earth prices themselves.

Ready to see the research? Click here to view the American Birthright presentation.

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