I'm not a financial advisor, so this is just my uninformed opinion. But I think it is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, during financial pullbacks there can be a flight to 'hard' assets such as precious metals and commodities. However, if it is a severe recession, then one would expect the demand for copper and other such commodities to wane (less 'stuff' will be produced as economic activity contracts). The latter seems to predominate for copper prices, which is why 'dr. copper' is believed to be an early indicator of impending market downturns. But the predictive power of copper may be overstated: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-28/copper-prices-fail-miserably-as-recession-indicator