This RareMetalBlog submission was posted on behalf of Mickey Fulp, Editor of The Mercenary Geologist who wrote this for our readers today. It was Mickey who introduced me to rare metals in December 2008...this is fitting for tonight, as we break all of our previous records for highest number of unique visitors to date . Thank you RareMetalBlog supporters, readers, sponsors and of course -- the writers. We couldn't do it without you.

The Cream of the Crop

By Mickey Fulp, Mercenary Geologist -- Around the turn of the year, Brian Fagan of Stocks and Speculations and Glenn Jones of Intierra Resource Intelligence published compendiums of junior resource exploration companies with news releases that mentioned projects containing rare earth elements. Each list contained more than 70 companies. Combining the two and adding a couple of others, I came up with about 75 companies in total. I then made a call on the ones that actually have viable exploration projects with even a remote chance of discovery, development, and eventual mining.

That subset was only 13 companies, basically one in six. The rest have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a mine or succeeding in the sector and rewarding shareholders for the long run. That means that five of six companies in REE space are merely “mining the stock market.” In a speculative commodity or area play, it is always wise to separate the very few contenders from the too-numerous-to-mention pretenders as soon as feasible. As an experienced geologist, I can do that rapidly with a brief look at the project location, geology, and sample data.

However, readers of my musings know that I evaluate a company not just on its flagship project but on three key criteria: Share structure, people, and projects. When I applied the final two criteria, companies of interest were pared drastically again.

These are the four companies that I consider the best of the best. Please note that I am an extremely biased shareholder of all four, generally at much lower prices than current trading levels. Three are paying sponsors of my website and one is a site affiliate:

• Avalon Rare Metals Ltd (AVL.T)
• Quest Rare Minerals Inc (QRM.V)
• Rare Element Resources Ltd (RES.V)
• Tasman Metals Ltd (TSM.V)

There are three other significant REE players that I have owned shares of in the past and that are always on my radar screen: Dacha Capital Inc (DAC.V), Hudson Resources Inc (HUD.V), and Neo Material Technologies Inc (NEM.T).

Unless there is another global economic recession (the so-called “double dip”), I expect the REE sector to rebound smartly in the second half of 2010.

In my next missive, I will give current comments on these four favorites.

Ciao for now,

Mickey Fulp
Mercenary Geologist