Source: Financial Times, 5th January 2010

Gold may attract far more punters and column inches but it was the red metal, not the yellow one, that truly shone in 2009. Copper prices surged 140 per cent last year and are now up over 160 per cent since their December 2008 low, compared with a roughly 25 per cent gain for both gold and the CRB Index of commodities. There is no break in the trend so far this year either as miners at a big Chilean producer went on strike this week, sending London spot prices to $7,450 a tonne, their highest since Lehman's collapse.