The sun shining on commodities was the analogy used in this morning’s The Financial Times to describe the present state of the market.

Deutsche Bank chipped in with a report bearing the news that, for the industrial metals, the Chinese mini-stimulus has begun to work its magic.

On cue, copper had a good rally overnight to close at $US7125 per tonne, as did nickel, ending at $19,625/t.

Gold hit a 3.5-month high.

What’s not to like?

I must say it’s a great relief to be able to write some upbeat words after some pretty dreary months for the mining sector.

We all know how tight things are out there: getting money out of your debtors is not easy thing these days.

However, the FT (and someone else quoted later) has some qualifications.

In the case of today’s newspaper, the caveat is that the clouds could gather again rather quickly if investors don’t come back into the commodities space.

But let’s look at the good news. The Dow Jones-UBS index, which tracks 21 commodities, delivered a 7.1% return for the first half of the year, outdoing equities, 10-year treasuries and high-yield corporate bonds.

As for Deutsche Bank, it is most bullish on nickel, rhodium, palladium, lead, zinc and platinum.

Alumina and aluminium are in the neutral space.

The German bank is most bearish on iron ore, silver, gold and coal.

Overall, my suspicion is that any recovery in commodities confidence will be tempered by experience of recent years.

Everyone was in boots and all before the global financial crisis and then confidence swept back by late 2009. But more disappointments were to follow and since then it has been hard work to pick the winners.

Nickel was down and out and then back in favour, copper seems to be resurgent at the moment but for how long?

The punters may climb back in on a sniff of another Fraser Range or the lure of graphite but the hardheads in the funds are not so easily enticed to throw their hats in the ring once again.

Deutsche sees hope for copper not so much in China (and no one really knows what the stockpile situation is there) but in Europe.

The recovery in copper demand in Europe has shown up in two key areas: wind turbines and autos.

As for offshore wind, there has been big demand for copper for all the submarine cable contracts that have been let in Britain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

As for cars, their sales in Europe have risen for nine straight months.

Moreover, there might be more action to come: Deutsche points out that Europeans have tended during the recent financially grim period to hold on longer to their cars, so the average age of vehicles on the road has been rising.

For the contrarian view we turn, not for the first time, to Roger Bade at London broker Whitman Howard.

In his latest quarterly review out this week, co-authored with Neil Pidgeon, he sees world metal and mineral commodity demand being catered for adequately by present mine supply.

Certainly base metals, iron ore, coal, minor and specialty metals are essentially available if you want them.

He is watching the uptick across the markets this week with some scepticism: he looks at the strong sentimental start to a new quarter before and, from what he calls “bitter past experience”, expects the usual dull fundamentals to come through as the quarter progresses.

Whitman Howard says it continues to believe that, in terms of where we are in the commodity cycle, we are in a 1980s-1990s scenario of well-supplied commodity markets.

“It remains the case that rampant commodity prices aren’t going to bail out poor assets, or inferior managements,” the analysts add.

Overall, it is clearly a time for caution. For one thing, I am coming close to discounting most of the speculation about the state of the Chinese economy and business scene.

We saw recently the scandal about base metals stored in Qingdao and now we have reports that some $15 billion has been raised in loans through fake gold deals involving 25 Chinese bullion processing companies. The Chinese market is simply too opaque.

Europe has negative interest rates, Japan is as mired as it was 10 years ago and so many countries (including Australia, if you go by the opinion polls reflecting the “gimme me, gimme me” stance of much of the populace) seem determined to follow Greece and Italy over the financial cliff.

It is hard to believe that we’re in for another commodities surge when one scours the glove in vain for a substantial bullish economic outlook.

We may muddle through but that may be as good as it gets.