Or find U.S. companies investing in hard assets like copper mines?

FORBES: Unrealistic expectations

Miners are pushing hard to increase their copper output in order to take advantage of the current market price, which is still relatively high.

FORBES: Freeport Mac Digging To $42 On Copper Comeback Fed By China

The precious metal silver and copper, an industrial metal, were particularly hard hit during the final four weeks of the quarter as silver lost 27.9% and copper lost 24.9% during the month of September.

FORBES: Is The Commodities Bull Run Over?

But even if the SRB decides to honour the transactions, it will be hard to move such a huge volume of copper to LME warehouses by next month, as required by the contracts.

ECONOMIST: China's copper crisis | The

When they are very, very small, materials, such as copper, that are soft can become hard.

ECONOMIST: The risk in nanotechnology

We're not going to front like we understand exactly how it works, but two IBM researchers in California have announced that they've gotten closer to controlling the orientation and magnetic spin of individual iron atoms on a copper surface, which would have huge implications for nanotech storage -- imagine the basic tech in your hard drive shrunk down the molecular level.

ENGADGET: IBM researchers get closer to nanotech hard drives