Rare earth substitutes?

Both US and China see developing substitutes for rare earth elements as one of the three options of solving this problem, in addition to opening more mines and recycling.

It looks like some companies have already found substitutes. I got the hint from a trader’s diary on the FT website. The trader here recommends Carclo, a producer of precision plastic products, because the company owns “game changing technologies.”

One of the strengths of the company is that it requires no rare earths in “printed electronics” (I need to do further research to know what that is), while its competitors do. The technology will be a game-changer, the report cited experts as saying.

So traders are long on rare earth companies, or companies that do not use rare earth.

The FT story is here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f58d2870-1a88-11e0-b100-00144feab49a.html#axzz1AeVzsgWQ

And here, investors keep long, long, and long on rare earth stocks: http://seekingalpha.com/article/245657-general-moly-s-volatility-is-your-friend