Editor’s Note: Jeff Brown and Marc Chaikin, two investment legends who picked Nvidia 10 years ago, are predicting that by the end of this month, Elon Musk’s new AI breakthrough will collide with a strange market pattern with a flawless 100% track record of massive market gains. Click here to see the details or read more below because the last time this happened everyday folks had a chance to turn $10,000 into as much as $350,000 in just about 12 months.

Dear Reader,

Take a look at Elon Musk’s new patent below…

Because it protects a new invention that could rewrite the future of wealth forever.

I’m talking about a radical new form of AI I call “M.A.G.I.”

One so revolutionary that Elon called it an “infinite money glitch.”

Click here to see the details because he believes this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create wealth on a scale most people can’t even comprehend.

What’s the upside potential here?

I know this is going to sound crazy…

But Elon is projecting growth of over 7,000,000%.

Let that sink in.

That’s enough to turn $100 into more than $7 million.

This sounds absolutely insane.

But then again… everything Elon has ever done sounded insane at first.

Self-driving cars.

Reusable rockets that land themselves.

Brain chips that let paralyzed people control computers with their minds.

Crazy ideas.

But he turned them into trillion-dollar realities.

So here’s the real question…

Will you watch Elon build another empire from the sidelines…

Or will you finally position yourself to potentially become one of the winners in his next trillion-dollar revolution?

Click here to get the details because I believe Elon will flip the switch on this new invention by the end of this month.

We have so much to look forward to,

Jeff Brown
Founder & CEO, Brownstone Research

Friday, July 31, 2026

Mosaic lost $258 million. Africa's mines face the same shortage.

Mosaic is one of the world's largest phosphate fertilizer producers. In May, it cut production by half at its plants in Louisiana and Florida. It posted a $258 million net loss for the first quarter.

Fertilizer prices were high. The company should have been profitable. Instead, it slashed capital spending by $250 million and started laying off workers.

The problem was not demand. The problem was a single chemical most investors never think about. Sulphur.

Sulphur gets converted into sulphuric acid. About 60% of that acid goes to fertilizer production. Much of the rest goes to processing copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earths. Two shocks hit the global sulphur supply this year. They forced two industries into direct competition for the same molecule.

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Global production of sulphuric acid exceeds 260 million tonnes per year. Without it, phosphate rock cannot become fertilizer. Without it, copper ore cannot become copper across much of Africa.

The extraction method that depends on it is called solvent extraction-electrowinning, or SX-EW. It dissolves copper from ore using acid baths. SX-EW accounts for about 16% of global copper supply. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, it produces 70% of all copper.

One chemical. Two supply chains. Total dependency on both sides.

Observation: Roughly 60% of global sulphuric acid production goes to fertilizer manufacturing. It is also the primary processing input for several critical minerals.
Interpretation: Any break in sulphur supply creates a direct tug-of-war between food production and mineral extraction. The two industries share a single bottleneck.

The Strait of Hormuz is the waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Military conflict in the region shut it to commercial traffic on February 28. Tanker transit dropped 90%. By April, data from Kpler, a cargo-tracking firm, showed traffic at 10% of preconflict levels.

The Middle East supplies about one quarter of global sulphur. Half of all seaborne sulphur trade moved through that strait. About 600,000 tonnes sat stranded on ships in the Persian Gulf.

Then came the second shock. On April 10, China announced it would halt sulphuric acid exports starting in May. China is the world's largest exporter of the acid. In 2025, it shipped 4.65 million tonnes. CRU, the commodity research firm, says no other region can fill that gap.

China's motive was domestic. It wanted cheap acid for its own spring planting season. It also wanted to keep acid flowing to its battery supply chain. So it closed the valve.

Observation: The Hormuz closure removed Middle Eastern sulphur from global markets. China's export ban then removed the world's largest flexible source of sulphuric acid.
Interpretation: Two independent shocks hit the same supply chain within weeks. The first cut the raw material. The second cut the processed product. Global buyers lost their fallback.

Sulphur prices surged after both shocks. Qatar's benchmark price hit $740 per tonne in May. Argus Media reports that is a record since their records began in 2013. It sits $250 above the previous peak. In the United States, Tampa sulphur contracts rose roughly 600% in under two years.

Mosaic now expects sulphur costs near $540 per ton in the second quarter. That is the force behind its production cuts. High fertilizer prices could not outrun the cost of the acid needed to make fertilizer.

On the mining side, the pressure is just as direct. The DRC and Zambia import about 90% of their sulphur from the Middle East. The International Energy Agency's 2026 Critical Minerals Outlook says the copper supply outlook has "worsened considerably."

The IEA also found a structural inversion. Acid costs have now overtaken energy costs in some areas of mineral processing. The cost of the chemical matters more than the cost of the electricity. That inversion shows up in earnings reports and production cuts on both sides.

Observation: Benchmark sulphur prices hit record levels. The IEA reports acid costs now exceed energy costs in some areas of mineral processing.
Interpretation: Fertilizer producers and mineral processors are absorbing the same shortage. It shows up in Mosaic's quarterly loss and in the IEA's downgraded copper outlook.

Gulf sulphur shipments began cautiously restarting in late June. Diplomatic efforts have eased some tension. But the structural condition is already set.

China's export ban still holds. The 4.65 million-tonne gap remains open. Two industries that never had to compete for the same input are now competing. The FAO warns fertilizer scarcity will tighten food supplies from late 2026 into 2027. On the mineral side, copper processors face rising acid costs with no clear relief.

Three signals are worth tracking. Whether China extends or lifts its acid export ban. How fast Hormuz traffic returns to pre-conflict levels. And whether fertilizer producers keep cutting output or find a way to restart. Each one tells you which side of this competition is absorbing more of the pain.

Two shocks turned sulphur from a quiet industrial commodity into a contested resource. Fertilizer producers and mineral processors now draw from the same shrinking pool. Mosaic's losses and Africa's copper supply problems share the same root. Both industries are waiting for the same chemical.

Until next time,
The Navigator