Be thankful for Cheshire salt: at least we don’t have to buy the stuff from Russia

Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business

The winter is arctic and the economy is a long way from spring, but commodities are hot again. Gold, the doomsters’ favourite, has a charmed life of its own, though its recent ascent has run out of oomph. Copper, the metal of choice for professionals betting on global recovery, perked up at the beginning of 2009 and has climbed steadily most of the way back to its 2008 peak. Nickel, zinc and aluminium bounced last spring in anticipation of a surge of industrial demand and continue to zigzag upwards, offering good returns for those who get their timing right. But the natural resource du jour is a basic commodity for which, until the snow started falling a month ago, no hair-gelled hedge-fund player would have shown any appetite at all, except on the rim of his margarita glass or his platter of foie gras: plain old salt.