A commodities supercycle is set to make a generation of investors rich The demand for green metals such as copper, nickel, aluminium and platinum is likely to soar 3 May 2021 • 11:00am There’s nothing like a big round number to concentrate the mind. Investors, in particular, have a tendency to get excited about arbitrary price points with an abundance of zeroes. Think the 1999 best-seller Dow 36,000 (we’re still waiting, but not for long, I suspect). Last week’s big round number was 10,000 – the price in dollars for a tonne of copper. It was the first time the metal, which is used in everything from kettles to electric vehicles and wind turbines, has risen so high since the peak of the last industrial commodity upswing in 2011.