I’ve been quite bullish on Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (NYSE:FCX) for some time now.  In fact, the stock is up over 119% since I first recommended it to Investor’s Daily Edge readers on February 12th of this year.

News that construction spending in the United States rose 0.3 per cent in March sent investors into a buying frenzy during Monday trading on the Canadian Markets. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange surged 3.93%, while the TSX Gold Index added 4.7% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, tacked on 1.68% with the advancers beating out the decliners by a 528 to 362 margin on good volumes of 210 million shares traded.

Diversification proved largely futile in 2008, as assets across the board came crashing down. But the right combination of hedges and ’safe havens’ can still return big profits, says Eric Roseman. He gives three investments that every portfolio should include in 2009.

Some of the valuations in today’s market are absurd, says Chris Mayer. Though market volatility means high risks in the short-term, now is the time to “plant the seeds of monster future returns.” Chris picks four deep value stocks with big upside potential.

The base metals were all mired in the red on Monday. Copper was in the green until the late pre-dawn hours, but fell off the rest of the day, only coming slightly off its intraday lows to finish at $1.6186/lb., down 2¼ cents from Friday.

Almost everything we use in modern society contains large amounts of raw materials. And they can’t be mined fast enough to keep pace with demand, especially from emerging markets. Lundin Mining Corp. (NYSE:LMC) is a strong Canadian mining company, with no debt and world-class assets. And it is a steal at today’s beaten down prices.

Copper prices have fallen off a cliff since June, and not even China’s massive stimulus has bucked the trend. But Sara Nunnally says one Chilean mining firm is still planning a major expansion in production over the coming years. This could mean big profits for the company’s three major financial backers (AAUK, XTA, MITSY)… provided they survive the current commodity slump.

China’s stimulus package proves that the global infrastructure boom is not dead, says Justice Litle. And that’s big news for base metals like copper. These are essential for construction, and will soar as the world attempts to rebuild its economy. That makes strong base metal producers a bargain now.

After China unveiled plans for a $586-billion stimulus package on Sunday, the media was abuzz that it could re-start the flagging commodities market. But it may be premature to peg all your hope on a single massive infrastructure build-out.

The base metals were mixed on Thursday. Copper went on a wild ride, rising and falling sharply through a 10-cent range before settling little changed at $1.8571/lb., down just a penny.