Elmet Group

The U.S. Department of War committed to invest 450 million dollars in Elmet, and a separate long-term deal with the military's supply agency could be worth up to 2 billion dollars. Orders waiting to be filled hit a record 347 million dollars, nearly four times last year's level and more than double the total from just three months earlier. Washington is putting real money behind rebuilding America's tungsten supply chain, and Elmet sits right at the center.

Sales jumped 55.6% to a record 79.6 million dollars, with demand growing across every major customer group, led by aerospace, defense, and government. Even better, Elmet now keeps about 31 cents of every sales dollar after production costs, up from about 22 cents a year ago. Profit hit about 8.3 million dollars, more than five times last year's 1.6 million.

Elmet is placing a lot of big bets at the same time. It plans to spend 165 million dollars expanding its U.S. factories, about 150 million dollars on a joint venture to restart a Nevada tungsten operation, and 125 million dollars on a stake in a major tungsten producer, all while buying a German metals business. If any of these projects run late or over budget, the costs could eat into this year's gains.

Part of this quarter's sales jump came from higher prices for raw materials like tungsten, and those prices can fall as fast as they rose. Inventory has more than doubled this year to about 153 million dollars, so a price drop would sting. The stock has also only traded since April, and about 200 million dollars of special stock issued this year gets paid before regular shareholders do.