Scrap Metal Price Dropping

Anyone else having trouble with scrap metal prices plummeting? I'm in Southern California and the prices have been dropping steadily for the past month. It's gotten so low that I do better recycling cardboard lately.

As has been posted on other threads, time to buy and stockpile. Turkey did make a minor purchase lately which is a positive movement, but metal is not moving internationally, nationally, and in the Midwest two big refineries are shut down for remodeling. Prices are not expected to rebound until late winter.

Steel prices also dropped here in Illinois as well. Looks to be about 7 cents a pound. Copper price seemed to hold as of last time I dropped some off. As for the rest, I am not sure. I still wish we would get more than 15 cents a pound for insulated wire..

The drop of the NZ$ against the US$ ( our $ was worth 80cents, now 70cents) made out metal go up a little.

Then steel dropped a bit, so everything else went down as well, back to where it was before.

Then steel dropped again, but Aluminium went up a bit. Copper went up a tiny about. Just the market correcting itself.

So, Copper, after all that, dropped about 12cents a lb, or NZ 30cents a Kg.
I lost about $60, or US$45 odd on my Copper stock.

Google, scrapmetalpricesnz to see what we get > Scrap Metal Price, Pricelist - Metalcorp NZ

Nice!

YES prices have been on steady course down, I took in a 1/2 ton of light steel (shred or tin) today and only two cents a pound more than cardboard. It is not a favorable scrapers market, but it is market that goes up and down. Now is when you only sell what you have to, hold onto what you can for that day when the market is more favorable. This is a time to think "out of the box", but keep your mind on the big "picture".

same here in Durban

i took in non ferrous for the last two days & i can honestly say i would have earned more than a third more for the same stuff a few months ago
everything from copper, brass down to stainless is DOWN

it would be nice to be in the position to stockpile but theres a few factors that prevent me doing that:
- i depend on scrap to earn a living- i have to sell what i have or my pockets will be dry
-i dont have space to stockpile
-theft- too many druggies & petty thieves

Electricity consumption versus cost has an effect on prices I'm sure. Globally speaking that is. Summertime is nice in that at night, the rates are down and smelting operations are in full effect, it's also construction season so raw materials demand is pretty high. Also consider that from August to December consumer electronic sales are 200% what they are for the rest of the year. These things have a seasonal factor on prices. I have been stockpiling what isn't worth refining costs and refining the rest. It's quite a bit easier to store PMs than it is to store the material they came from. This applies across the board.

Moral of the story is, tis the season to do breakdowns and scrap maximizing. Plan for four or five months of not turning in anything but what you need to for bare operating essentials. That's what I'm doing.

Originally Posted by tjlock

Steel prices also dropped here in Illinois as well. Looks to be about 7 cents a pound. Copper price seemed to hold as of last time I dropped some off. As for the rest, I am not sure. I still wish we would get more than 15 cents a pound for insulated wire..

.15cents say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

tjlock, man I will COME TO YOU to give you a better wire price man.

Weird, our price for Copper is now NZ$6.63 per Kg
Which is 36 cents higher than on the 5th November.

So really, Coppers held its price, probably gone up a little (my yards prices are a little higher than the web reference site that I use & quote from)
But Heavy Iron has dropped by 25%, though litegauge steels only dropped by less than 3%.

Basicly, thru carefull shopping of scrapyards prices you can get the same return when you are selling nonferrous.
But, Irons dropped. Particualy Heavy Iron.
Since I only scrap nonferrous, everythings still sweet. I gave all of my Ferrous to my scrapmetal source last month, so he did get a good return.

You're also in the southern hemisphere during your peak season.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

My normal buyer of nonferrous has stopped buying as of right now cause he has so much stockpiled waiting for a price rise.

Wow... not a good sign

I am at currnetly $215 per ton for this month.Even though i havent hauled anything at all in lol.

I have heard that next month it is going to stay the same or may go up just a little.