Your phone buzzed in your pocket this morning. The tiny weight that made it shake is tungsten. So is the edge of the drill bit in your garage, the cutting tool that machined your car’s engine, and the core of an armor-piercing round. You’ve held this metal a thousand times. Now try to buy it. There’s no tungsten exchange or a futures contract and no fund that holds the metal. The price is set by a handful of weekly assessments most investors never read, in a market so small that one government office can move it with paperwork. That office sits in Beijing. And over the past sixteen months, it taught the West a lesson ... (full story)