The meltdown in nickel and lithium may have further to run as falling prices and rising costs continue to squeeze mining companies’ profit margins, but investors and strategists are more optimistic about copper on expectations of a supply shortage.

BHP earlier this month wrote down the value of its nickel business by $5.4 billion pre-tax, while billionaire Andrew Forrest’s private company Wyloo is shutting several nickel mines it bought for $760 million just six months earlier. In lithium, Pilbara Minerals reported a 77 per cent collapse in half-year earnings from tumbling prices.