In short, copper, like other commodities, has become just another piece of paper for financial institutions to trade; the industry simply just does not have the resources to counter these activities.

It is why consumers are spending on R&D to at best design copper out of their systems or at least to reduce its content. Dr Copper retired about five years ago because of the activities of the banks and others.

Copper's pricing story is, therefore, a simple one. Prices are dictated by derivative, equity and currency markets. In line with our economic scenario, outlined earlier, copper prices should be in a falling though volatile trend to the end of the year; they should rally strongly in 2011 and into 2012; prices are then likely to fall very sharply and stay low for some years.

The second credit crisis is forecast to start in or around 2012. It will force much of the copper held off the market by financial institutions and others to be liquidated, much the same as what happened in the 1980s. In other words, what helped to push copper prices to exalted levels will drive prices to levels last seen in the early 2000s.

Eoin Treacy's view Copper rallied consistently from January 2009 to early 2010. It formed a larger reaction in January and pulled back into the previous range. It found support in the region of the 200-day moving average, and rallied back to make an incremental new high, but failed to sustain it and has fallen once more to test the MA and the psychological 300¢ level. The case for some additional upside remains for the bulls to prove and while it rallied this week, it needs to hold above the recent low near 290¢ and preferably above the MA near 314¢ to avoid further deterioration