So Scrap went down to 130$ a ton yesterday and then $120 a ton today. Kinda has me bummed. Was $150 a ton when I started then 2 days later was $140 a ton for the longest time...
:(
Maybe I try a different scrapyard..?
So Scrap went down to 130$ a ton yesterday and then $120 a ton today. Kinda has me bummed. Was $150 a ton when I started then 2 days later was $140 a ton for the longest time...
:(
Maybe I try a different scrapyard..?
Call around for the best pricing. Eventually you'll settle on a yard and stick with them. Pricing used to be stable for a month or so at a time. But now the market volatility is unreal so no guaranteed pricing anymore since the yards aren't getting a stable price themselves. You gotta ride the waves though. I'm fortunate to have enough land to stockpile and do other things for money, so the market doesn't dictate my actions
Welcome to the world of metals. We are all bummed when it goes down.
Many of us have seen 200+ n/t at some point...had we given up then, this forum wouldn't exist.
I always look at it this way.....am i making more than flipping hamburgers at McDonalds if so I continue scrapping
I never settle on any yard or buyer. I'm always checking for better prices.
Ive seen shred steel as high as 270/ton (2011) and as low as 40/Ton (2015). It is what it is... Way she goes...
Yes, call around for pricing. sometimes around here the non shredder yard pays more than the yard with a shredder.
More years ago than I care to admit, I remember being excited when the price was a penny a pound ($20 per ton). When it hit two cents a pound ($40 per ton), we thought we were rich! A friend and I were so excited when we heard the news of the price increase we put so much weight on the truck that the bumper scraped the ground when we pulled on the scale. ( ok, we were young and not too smart at the time...)
This business isn't a get rich quick thing, it's about a decision to be your own boss. When the price drops you find ways to cut costs to still make money. When the price goes up, those cost saving ideas help you to make a lot more money. Don't get discouraged. Read everything on this forum you can and determine what type of material works the best for you. It does work.
Thanks all. That actually really helped out alot. Guess I just gotta hang in there. This isn't a full time thing for me but, still a pay cut is a pay cut. Maybe I will focus a little more on aluminum, e-scrap and copper and maybe make a home made wire stripper.
Yep hang in there... Sheet iron was 230 net ton $.115 lb. in 2012 and $15 net ton $.0075 lb. in 2000! While $.115 a pound for steel was great, it was gone as soon as it hit the curb, dumpster, dirt or street! Now with lower prices it sits around for awhile so easier to find and get!
It could be worse. Silver was almost $50 an ounce in Spring, 2011. Now it is $16.01 (per kitco.com).
I found 36 lb. of brass (broken drum cymbals) yesterday so that helped.
This is part of the game that is scrapping.
Prices change. Weekly, monthly, hell at one point as KZ briefly touched it was every day.
When I started Gold was at 1600 per toz. An was going up. That was a few years ago. We've watched it go down, slightly up, then stagnate, then go up an down again.
Folks that do this know prices change often, an we've learned to deal with it an make the proper changes so we all stay profitable. You can play the shell game with yards, but you'll eventually see yards in certain radius of each other will be close or different by a couple cents here an there. All the yards near me are mostly feeders to the one big one.
What i'm trying to say this game we play is like a roller coaster. There's ups an downs. You gotta stay the course though, or you'll be quitting every time a price drops.
My protip of the day : Adapt an overcome. If your material isn't fetching what you want, it may be time to look for new materials, an new niche.
This business isn't for the faint of heart.
I wish you luck, never fun when prices drop.
Sirscrapalot - Up n down, up n down...not talking boats on a wave, but metal prices. - me.
I'm not quitting (although I did take a much needed break yesterday) I am going to focus a little more on aluminum, e-scrap and copper and instead of "maybe make a home made wire stripper" I just invested in one yesterday, I figure it should pay for itself pretty quickly.
problem is in my neck of the woods, south louisiana, yards close early for a day job worker. one yard is open for half a day on saturday but that happens to be the yard thats 40 min away. others shut down 3:30 pm and close at 4. who the hell closes at 4pm for a business.
A good business person will take advantage of lower prices to make contacts, increase business, expand equipment/inventory, and develop a business plan. Those that study history know that many millionaires were made in scrap during troughs in the business cycle. Few make a fortune working the system only during peaks or just "turning and burning."
Example: When prices are low try to buy the equipment from your competition. Your cost will be lower and it will make it harder for them to become your competition when the prices increase. It may not be low enough yet, but just wait and it will happen. I bought all the torches I could when the price was $ 20.00 a ton here and now the competition has to invest close to $ 500 to get back in when the price hit $ 160 a ton. The same strategy was used for demo saws and trailers. Stockpiling is another successful strategy when prices tank. Of course you could just go fishing until the prices rebound.
Good don't quit.
Quitters never win. ;)
An I agree on yards closing early. Mine do the same, close at 4 during the week, an luck if the one close to me is open on a weekend. I wouldn't go though anywayt, I'd have to fight my way through a ton of tourists, an that ain't no fun. Cops get mad if you run them over. :(
I kid I kid. I don't run over tourists...lest not that anyone can prove. >:)
Sirscrapalot - My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met. - Rodney Dangerfield
Now that right there is quality advice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patriot76
I may just have to name a cooler after Patriot. ;)
Sirscrapalot - I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out. - Rodney "I get no respect" Dangerfield
I am actually enjoying these middle of the road prices........metal is fairly plentiful and easy to get............
This could be a blessing in disguise, as gas has gone down too. All your gas for every vehicle in your household is cheaper. If you drive a lot and don’t scrap that much, it could make a pretty big difference. Another thing some people do when they are convinced that gas is going up- they buy stock in ExxonMobil or Chevron or some other energy stock. Also, with gas down I can see where some would take that road trip they’ve been putting off.It is all about hedging your bets. In the stock market there are times (not always, of course) when I say I don’t really care whether the stock goes up, down or sideways, I should be able to make money on it. Freeport McMoran (copper and gold miner) was that way in 2016, but hasn’t been since.
...where is it that the price of gas has gone down? It sure isn't down by me.
https://gasprices.aaa.com/news/
Maybe that's outdated info in the link I posted above, i'm not arguing cause - I don't keep on top of national gas price trends, but gas hasn't gone down near me, it keeps going up.
Well... I guess it's 1 cent per lb. down from when I started scrapping. I guess it's really not that big a deal. Just means I need to make sure that truck is completely full before I take it to the scale (been trying to do that anyway) and saving the brass, aluminum and copper etc... My stripper arrived yesterday... not the kind the comes with a brass pole, but, it would be nice to have a brass pole to recycle, my wife wouldn't like if I had "ordered" the other kind of stripper...
:)
shred has been $65-80/ton here for over a yr. The only thing I take for shred are computer cases that I strip and misc junk associated with e-waste.
Just took a load in on Friday
1200 lbs #1 steel at $200 gross ton 107.14
130 lbs of insulated copper wire @065 lb 85.15
356 lbs batteries at .29 lb 103.24
grand total 296.00 , I did not think that was too bad .
Next load on Monday we'll see prices on light steel which I have another trailer load I estimate 1400 lbs
Myself, I have to keep moving it out based on lack of any extra space to hold onto anything for long.
Let me clarify my poor attempt at humor.Quote:
Originally Posted by SKWrapper
I bought a wire stripper. I didn't "buy" a female "exotic dancer". My wife would NOT have liked it if I did and I might not be married to her for long after that, but the bright side is if the girl came with a brass pole, at least I could recycle that.
*crickets,... then tomatoes being thrown at Mike (me), followed by boo's*
Sorry for going off topic with bad humor.
I was able to recycle 860 lbs of metal Wednesday most of it was at one stop, so that was nice.
Cars are dropping also >> $130.00 a ton on Friday the 13th, $120 on Monday the 16th and dropped to $110.00 today with a warning could be $100.00 on Monday
Yeah. My yard pays 0.045 /lb for general shred steel. I normally don't collect and take steel, but since I am getting so much of it now, and my yard now buys computer fans and PSUs (even with the wire still attached and plugs removed) as shred steel, I am pretty much forced to now. I don't haul anywhere near the weights you guys talk about since I am a low-income (in terms of material) person, so I don't accumulate as much as you all. I just live in an area that is more remote than what I would like for scrapping. When I lived in Virginia, I lived in a neighborhood with over 1200 homes in it, (by just walking and using a hand truck as my transporter) I could cover the whole neighborhood in about three hours and get an average value each time of about $100. This neighborhood also has an annual yard sale in which nearly every house participated in. I would wait until the various trash days, and since I was the only scrapper in this neighborhood that I knew of, I would go around and sift through their unsold items left out in the rubbish piles. It was quite nice. Usually scored a couple printers (for scrap steel), a few CRTs, some misc. smalls and other electronics, and some general scrap metal. Sometimes I'd find some wire pieces, and some aluminum chunks. A couple times I found whole laptops and a couple desktops. Those times were what made me keep going out and doing it again.
Sorry for the rant there, but sometimes I just get to talking when I start to remember what my high times were like. Anyway, I hope my yard pays a little more for stainless steel over general shred. I do sometimes come across some stainless and I will collect it too and sort it if it pays more. If not, I'm just going to leave it because of its weight to value ratio.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant! :) Hope everyone has a great day!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stargate1
Yes, You should get more for stainless especially if it's "clean". I get my hands on all the stainless pots and pans I can grab and remove and non stainless like handles etc. Also kitchen sinks are good for stainless . High end gas grills sometimes have good quality stainless- my yard told me the cheap ones look like stainless but are really not much.
Do yourself a favor and use a cut-off wheel and cut the wire pigtails off the power supplies. Takes literally 4 seconds, toss them in a drum and sell as wire. I give the yards nothing extra in my shred because they don't for us in return. Stainless is usually anything not magnetic. Low grade stainless like the cheap grill lids are junky stainless and go to shred, but the side plates can be cast aluminum, so just use a magnet and check it. E-scrap is really where its at in terms of money, but you have to have the volume. If you really want to get serious about it, call all the shops within a 40-50mile radius of your home and talk to them. If they want you to pay for scrap, try always to make atleast double your investment if possible. Buy for $1, sell for $2. I use that rule when I have to pay for things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stargate1
I wonder if supply and demand are driving the markets.Quote:
Originally Posted by SKWrapper
The price of gas at our station has been stable at 2.999 / gal for about three weeks now. It usually goes up sometime in May or June just before the summer driving season starts and then levels off in July. It should start to drop sometime after Labor Day. That's the traditional " end of the summer tourist season " for us.
The lobster fishing industry is big here. The lobsters were late to move inshore this year so prices stayed up. They started to filter into the Eastern Bay about a week and a half ago. Lobster prices started to drop as soon as the supply increased and the fishermen groaned. Fishermen are * Ahem* in the same boat as the scrappers.
It's probably the same with scrap metal prices ? There's more scrapping activity in the summer so there's more on the market ? That would drive prices down ?
Maybe China's National Sword policy has influenced the market by reducing demand ?
BTW: Congrats on the new stripper. Just don't tell the wife because you'll never hear the end of it ! They don't like it when you spend money on that kind of thing. Just hide it out in the shop. She won't figure it out for a couple of years. When she finally catches on .... just say to her it's been out there for ages hon.... where have you been ???? ;)
The dollar is too strong, interest rates are forecasted to “hike”, and tariffs are causing a slow down in global demand for all
etals.
Thanks Kalvin and Aaron p for the replies. I have been doing e-scrap for about 12 years now, so I am pretty experienced in that field. I've been doing non-ferrous metals for almost as long. Now, I am getting into actually collecting steel to cover fuel expenses, I needed a little more info on the best way to gather it. I always cut the wire off the computer PSUs and the plugs off the other end. I also noticed that e-waste prices went down a little. Motherboards seem to have been impacted the most, and I think the price of gold going down is to blame. Hopefully it'll go back up and we can start making good money again. I use several online auction sites and attend in-person auctions to get e-waste, but the area I live in isn't as active with those types of auctions as the area in Virginia in which I lived. Oh well. Can't win them all I guess.
Heard a 20/ton drop for steel prices in august :&
it's down to 110 a ton now... :rolleyes: and I had a 980lb load of scrap today + some batteries and mixed low grade wire. I won't sell my bright stripped solid core and stranded bare copper wire to that yard. I have to wait till the weekend to take it elsewhere, cause everywhere else pays more for copper.
All that weight for 110/ton. Pretty disappointing.
85/ton here in LV. Not even a regular ton lol, but a British gross ton
$35/ton here. Only thing steel is e-waste by-product or a/c unit shells.
$35 a ton, I don't know how anyone could not just break even - on scrap anyway - unless it's that guy that rides a bike and carries fridges... and even then the calories it takes and the food required for just the calories... still would be close to breaking even or a loss on fuel.Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron p
This forum has experienced market swings ranging between $ 10 per ton and $ 210 per ton for steel. Experts on here could provide the history of non-ferrous. On a post made July 10 it was hinted that prices were going to go even lower and some ideas were provided. Our local yards are choking and it would not be surprising if they quit paying for metal because of storage problems. It could get bad enough they will lock their gates. Different parts of the country will experience their own bottom and I doubt many will get to the point expected here. I like to refer to it as scrap metal constipation.
I have not sold a load since early summer and feel like I am making money. During this time medical issues have been addressed, a truck and trailer was purchased, new accounts added, and a large purchase of gravel was made using the barter system. If you are focused on "what your time is worth" and spread sheets you can not see the bigger picture and your decisions will be based on emotions, not a business plan. The intent of this post is to offer another perspective. If my guess is correct we will see fewer active members on the forum and new posts will be days apart.
Hint- When certain members become active again on the forum, we will know we are in a recovery phase.
I've been fortunate that 1. It went down but to 110 a ton by me and I guess that's not too bad and 2. I have increased my IT consulting hours and my compensation at my regular carrier has been increased so I can't complain and 3. Hardly anyone scraps in the area where I work so after work or during lunch I typically get a full load anytime I bother to look. My poor truck is begging for mercy as I type.
All it means for me, the lowered prices, is that I will invest and focus less on weight and more on non-ferrous. By "invest" I mean fix my heater core and back window on my truck and get a headache rack, that and spend more time with my wife and son now that things have calmed down a bit.
doom and gloom i love it!!!!!!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by patriot76
I do not see it that way and sorry if that was the interpretation. To me it is a great opportunity and one to be relished, if you approach it correctly. As was stated in my previous post, few make money in this business when the prices are good. Most that succeed in the long term make their moves when the market is in a trough. The truck and trailer were purchased from another scrapper that did not want to wait out the situation. When the market rebounds he will not be competition until he reinvests. A quick flip to a hay hauler (business is peaking) demonstrated a person willing to pay more to take advantage of the upturn in prices. The irony would be when the hay market drops he decides to sell the unit back to me for less than he paid and it is sold back to the scrapper for more than I payed.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeinreco
As far as the gravel, I was asked to clean up land that will be auctioned. The land has a gravel pit on it and I negotiated this into our agreement. My neighbor has a dump truck and needs gravel. He also has RR ties that I could use. For the use of his dump truck and the RR ties he will get half the gravel. My half of the gravel will be used to expand my operation.
Some people sell their positions in the stock market at the bottom of a correction, ensuring a loss. Those that are successful double down during drops in the market. This is what I am advocating, be creative and look for ways to improve your business instead of sitting on the sidelines. If you are only concerned what your time is worth, you will miss a lot of opportunities.