Yes, the market has NOT been kind to us in the last month. I haven't had to drop my prices too severely yet, but converters are down a bit and headed lower if the market drops much more. A few bucks a cat isn't a real big deal if you have 10 or 20 that you cut from junkers. It's downright scary if you're sitting on a few hundred converters that you bought at higher price levels, especially when you're only working on 6 to 10%.
I still don't trust that the PGM markets are done falling (but I'd be happy to be wrong). Platinum is down another $21.00/oz as I type this, Palladium down $12. Pd held up better than Pt there for a while, but it, too has been hammered in the last few weeks. Many common high-grade converters today are actually palladium-based..GM Flows and high-grade Hyundais to name a few.
I'm filling my batches, locking in my pricing and unloading quickly, no time to wait around with $40+ daily drops in Platinum! This kind of thing usually occurs once or twice in a decade. It's scary, we just have to know that it eventually will happen and be ready to deal with it. If it gets really bad and I break even (or even lose a few hundred) on a batch, I look at it this way- I made money on my last 50 batches, and I will almost certainly make a profit on each of the next 50. If I should lose a bit on a batch or two, it's a small price to pay for all the times I have made and will make money. In a way, it's a good thing... Market scares like this will quickly shake out the weak players.
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