Cyclical stock market sectors are key for confirming the economic outlook.

But I also pay close attention to industrial metals that are sensitive to demand trends. Copper is one of the most popular base metals, and is used in everything from wiring for houses and data centers to the power grid.

Copper prices could be in the early stages of an important breakout. The CPER exchange-traded product that tracks copper prices cleared initial resistance at the $24.50 level, and is recently testing more significant resistance at the $26 level (shaded area in the chart below) that goes back to the start of 2023.