I'm not sure, Nasa. I can see where you're coming from with the...

I'm not sure, Nasa. I can see where you're coming from with the strategic importance argument, but just two points:

1. Supposing the next several years are marked by a poorly performing global economy, with increasing share market routs and volatility. Yes, sometimes it can lead to the "flight to perceived safety" phenomenon, e.g. gold. However it's worth recalling that gold was not spared and declined sharply into the lows of the GFC in 2009 and it wasn't until the recovery that it rebounded, under the maxim of a future inflationary outlook. In reality, precious metals don't actually have high correlation with inflation or interest rates and it's one of the bigger myths out there. During market turmoil such as the GFC, I believe gold was heavily sold-off because it's such a highly liquid market and very easy to exit positions and free-up capital. During a rout on equity markets this is important, especially when many funds during the GFC were freezing assets or only making a portion of investors' capital redeemable.

2. Even assuming we give some credence to the "flight to safety" phenomenon (which I don't, as evidenced by quantitative data over long periods of time in relation to correlation) gold is a very different beast to "strategic" metals. The very characteristic that makes a metal "strategic" is the same one that tends to make it a relatively illiquid market, i.e. they are marked by relative scarcity and fewer rather than many buyers and sellers. I agree with you that graphene, scandium, even lithium, could all be deemed strategic, in some sense of the word, however they are not the type of metals that are highly redeemable in tradable markets if a large fund needs to liquidate positions to meet margin calls or the like. I think this rules out the flight to safety idea for strategic metals.

In summary, I can't see turmoil in global markets aiding strategic metals in any meaningful way. The assets of economies and financial institutions are too interconnected, such that even the ones with brighter futures are dragged down during economic slumps, as all projects tend to suffer funding cutbacks, as the pool of total available funds shrinks. We saw this happen during the GFC, when, at the time, copper was said to be a strategic metal with outstanding prospects. It nevertheless was sold off heavily, despite the known demand from China that was still occurring and was earmarked for at least the next decade.

This is the study that shows how little correlation gold has to popular reference points.
http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/faj.v69.n4.1