Global deflation is rearing its ugly head as commodity prices continue to fall. The Bloomberg Industrial Metals subindex fell 3.9%. Copper prices fell to its lowest price since 2009. As you can see from the chart below copper is now down 2.5% today. Last week in a comment, I said FCX was a sell because of global deflation brought about by slowing growth in China, a hawkish Fed, and a strong dollar. These trends are not moderating. They are intensifying. Investors should avoid all commodity stocks until China shows signs of improving. China is still just starting to slowdown. It's economy was a massive bubble as it took on debt to build infrastructure to lift its people out of poverty. No amount of government spending can lift an economy. Only free markets and capitalism can sustainably lift people up. It cannot spend its way out of this decline because spending is what caused the decline in the first place. Central planners cannot allocate resources as efficiently as individual players in a capitalist economy can. A recession will help heal the economy as its balance sheet delevers from the 208% debt to GDP ratio is currently has. Even though FCX is down 18% today, I'd avoid it. China was the driver of demand for copper during the recovery. As China's demand has fallen, so has copper. This will continue.