On Monday, shares were trading just above 40 cents. Read More Who's afraid of self-driving cars? Recent news reports say the company is planning to file for bankruptcy protection, and analysts who follow the company say it is buried under mountains of debt and struggling with historically low prices for rare earths. "We have been waiting for them to file for bankruptcy, and we have been anticipating this for some time given the dynamics of the global rare earths market and debt structure of Molycorp" said Michael Gambardella, an analyst for JP Morgan.