copper dropping in your area ?

[EcoSafe]

Its dropping like a rock here. $3.60 for #2 a month ago today it was $2.80.

[High Voltage Processing]

We are all feeling the pinch. My prices have dropped as well although I am still higher than my scrap yards.

[gustavus]

We are all feeling the pinch. My prices have dropped as well although I am still higher than my scrap yards.

See, I told you not to break open that Champagne over a little copper strike in Peru, coper prices didn't go the way you expected.

I wouldn't like to be sitting on an excess of inventory at the moment, It's going to get a lot worse before we see any improvement on the horizon.

September 20/2011

Base metals prices at 0107 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct Move YTD pct chg
LME Cu 8260.25 -48.75 -0.59 -13.96
SHFE CU FUT DEC1 62010 -950 -1.51 -13.70
LME Alum 2323.00 -4.00 -0.17 -5.95
SHFE AL FUT NOV1 17175 -20 -0.12 1.99
HG COPPER DEC1 373.10 0.55 +0.15 -15.96
LME Zinc 2093.50 11.50 +0.55 -14.69
SHFE ZN FUT DEC1 16260 -120 -0.73 -16.51
LME Nickel 21100.00 -120.00 -0.57 -14.75
LME Lead 2311.75 -8.25 -0.36 -9.34
SHFE PB FUT 15715 -35 -0.22 -14.36
LME Tin 22650.00 0.00 +0.00 -15.80
LME/Shanghai arb -314

[IdahoScrapper]

Oh. Fantastic. It was $2.90 (and that's a high/good price around here) 3 weeks ago.

[GeorgeB]

Ours did as well. It was almost 3.7 for #2...today I got 3.15 for #2.....all non ferrous is dropping!

everything else for me is at $10 per 100...cast is a little more.

[High Voltage Processing]

I have been fighting with people who think they should be getting more for their wire. They don't get that when copper goes down the wire does as well. The hardest part of my job is telling people they don't have the value they think they do.

[Ewasted]

I have been fighting with people who think they should be getting more for their wire. They don't get that when copper goes down the wire does as well. The hardest part of my job is telling people they don't have the value they think they do.

You will always be fighting that battle. I've found that the people with less material fight the most.

[EcoSafe]

he he on my iron I always work my guy up a penney a lb no matter what the price quoted, that makes up for 100 miles of usless road time. every free mile helps.

[High Voltage Processing]

God I should be so lucky that all they want is a penny a pound. All my sellers seem to want to sell for 40-50 cents over going rate.

[newattitude]

Well I had a ''Hmmmmm??'' moment this week. Took in a load and for the first time #2 copper was higher than #1. Uh, is that even..........right????

[Mechanic688]

http://www.scrapmonster.com/
According to them, there's only .25 difference between 1 and 2. Maybe they need to bulk up on their #2 copper and paying more might bring in more,,,? just a thought.

[newattitude]

I hadn't thought of that, the bulking up part. Makes sense.

[Gatorcore]

Prices are still dropping : (

[Peter_Griffin]

Copper down another 7% today, down .62 cents a pound from two weeks ago, down a buck from two months ago. I've been stock piling copper assuming the fed would continue to devalue our dollar, but looks like I'll get burned on that idea for the time being. My opinion, the economy is getting worse, copper prices will continue to fall if they let the dollar strengthen, and competition over scrap metal will likely fade. I'm holding my copper until we see market price well above $4 a pound again. If prices fall like from the '08 recession ($1.XX a LB), I'll offer higher prices than the yards are paying and hopefully make a killing once the economy stabilizes.

[EcoSafe]

your assuming when the price rises, you must also consider "if". few world currencies, including our is backed by any thing, but your hard work and taxes. no work no taxes. the dollar falls. the fed prints mor fiat dollars, it just falls again. you think you are getting a better price but you are really not. i.e. you are just gettin a larger number of smaller dollars
2 facts prove this to be true. 1. in the Roman empire 2000 years ago a one oz gold coin would buy you a complet set of very nice cloths. today 2011 one oz of gold will still buy you a fine set of cloths. 2. 100 years ago one dollar was worth 1/20th of an oz of gold today that same dollar is worth 1/1850th of an oz of gold world prices are vertually the same as they were 2000 yrs ago. it is the dollar worth less not the value of products going up. sooner or later it has to end. to say more would be to become political. which I will not. if you want more info PM me.
just my .02

[submarinepainter]

I often wonder is Ron Paul right , we should of never went of the gold standard?

[EcoSafe]

there has to be a backing for money, weather it is Gold or dirt, It is the only way to keep the Banksters somewhat honest. with out it you get to where we are today. The founding fathers knew that 250 years ago.

[PartTimeScrapper]

I often wonder is Ron Paul right , we should of never went of the gold standard?

Yep dumbist thing america ever did IMO...

[HaulinHeiny]

When 'the dollar falls' it falls relative to other currency. Also, if 'the fed prints mor fiat dollars' [sic], it creates economic force for price inflation. Those two sentances describe two sides of the same coin. The result should be inflation in everything, including raw material. When a steel/copper/aluminum refinery buys a commodity item like our scrap metal, they are actually bidding for the product against all other mills in the world (cumulative world supply and demand set the commodity prices). But U.S. mills need to buy with weak/fallen/inflated dollars so they need to pay more. All of this says prices should be rising, but they're going down.

So what are we seeing with this price decline? This is the beginning of another recession, or a deepening of the one that was muddling along. There is less demand for 'stuff' in a recession. The demand is less, so the price we get goes down (for our supply of raw material). To make it worse, in the last year or two there are lots of people who figured out one could make pretty good cash collecting scrap metals, so the supply was probably increasing.

But that's not all. With reduced demand for metal in the economy, the scrap yards and mills are right now sitting with WAY more raw material than they need. They don't want that inventory, so they drastically reduce how much they buy until they reduce their inventory levels. Say their sales volume went down 10%, they might reduce their scrap buying by 30% because their sitting on too much inventory and they want to use it up. When/if the scrap buyers rebalance their inventory, then they' will start buying again and prices will stabilize possibly with a little rally. Yet, the buying will be at a reduced volume - matching the reduced demand in a recession.

So where do I think prices are headed? Down and down, with a little rally after 9 to 15 months but they will still remain well below the 2011 summer highs. So hoard or not? hoard some but sell some too. Also, reduce what WE pay for scrap ourselves.

[Ditchdigger]

To answer the original question, #1, down from $3.30 on Tuesday, to $3.00 today.

(And I'm glad I was following the Forum. We dug up about 15 pounds of old water service line last week, and that's what I took in on Tuesday. Dug up another 22 pounds Thursday, and today was the earliest I could get to the yard. I figured it would be bad business to wait til next week.)