After trebling throughout its big rally in 2009 into early 2010, copper, since April, has given back 15 to 20 per cent, given back a chunk of those gains during that '09 bull market.

As such, this has triggered questions amongst investors. Are we entering a new bear market for copper? Or indeed, is this just simply a consolidation of those strong gains that we saw in 2009?

For now what's clear is that copper correlates highly with the risk trade in global financial markets. It correlates highly, for example, with the S&P 500 and with other risk assets.

As such, we think copper will continue to drift lower in its own phase two-type consolidation of those gains in phase one.

In the medium-term however, we think there are four key reasons to be positive on copper, to believe that copper will continue its own super cycle along with other commodities.

Firstly China, we see evidence of China restocking its copper levels having destocked at the corporate level in China through the end of '09 into the beginning of 2010, that trend is now turning. That we see from the Chinese data. That's confirmed from falling inventories from the LME.

Second, if you look at US demand, the risks are to the upside, not the downside. Housing, for example, a big consumer of copper in the States, is flat on the floor. We saw with new home sales the lowest data point in 40, 50 years last month. The risk is upside, not downside. Housing is very beaten up. Copper demand is only likely to pick up over time rather than go down in the States.

Third, what we see is we see falling industry fundamentals, falling ore grades out of the mine. The extract rock has got less copper in it than it had previously. It's harder to get the stuff out of the ground. It's becoming more expensive. There's less obvious and easy copper to get out.

Then finally, and the fourth key reason, is what we saw during the global financial crisis was big cuts in capex from the big companies. Cuts in capex, so there will be less supply coming on over coming months, quarters and years and with that, we saw little give back in production. Production remained close to full capacity throughout the crisis and as such, there is little spare capacity to soak up the demand growth as it comes through.

So if you believe the China story persists, as we do for now, and the US is recovering, as we do believe it is for now, then copper, over the long-term, is a very attractive asset class. Its super cycle should continue and we think there will be a great buying opportunity later on this year some time in early autumn.

That was the Longview. You can download this programme from iTunes store, from Cantos's website or from our website longvieweconomics.co. Do get in touch through the website if you have any questions. We hope you've enjoyed watching. Look forward to seeing you next month. Goodbye.