Do scrapyards still take scrap ?

   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #21  
A buddy of mine owns a small scrap operation here in Canada. We were chatting last week, he was still taking non ferrous, but was not taking ferrous metals from anyone except his loyal customers who he knew needed to clear their bins regularly. He was not paying for steel anymore though.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #22  
I deal in it fairly regularly, and was speaking with my buddy that owns a yard. He said for the first time in 30 years he does not have a contract for someone to buy his steel from him. That is rough.

I was listening to NPR and they were saying how lots of overseas folks were renegging on their contracts, and the steel ended up just sitting in the ships, that the Chinese who had been a huge consumer of it, just about stopped taking any in.

I would like to think that would be a boon for the American steel industry, but unfortunately I believe that between OSHA, EPA and Union shops we have run ourselves about out of that business. Maybe this economic downturn will cause folks to look back into the US a bit and see what we could do ourselves?
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #23  
I have been to some of these financial seminars and to my mind they don't have any better indicators of the market than you or I. They start out with " I can get you 9% on your investments " so I say.... put it in writing and then comes the long pause......... They are after the commission rate for bringing in the business and I am willing to bet others in the background make the final decisions. If they knew beans they would borrow a huge chunk of cash and multiply it over and over again. They would not bother trying to con you or I out of 10k at some hokey low dollar restaurant free meal gimick. I think most aspire to be used car salesmen.

I couldn't agree more emphatically. I have used the same broker/financial planner for years and with the exception of the mid/late 1990's have often felt dissatisfied (who couldn't have made you good money in those years though). I really don't stay on top of my investments with him as well as I should so it is at the very least partly my fault. Every year or two I decide I am leaving him and every time I talk to a new guy he seems to be just like the rest so I've never switched. I have looked into online brokerage but just don't feel like I have the time and and ability to fervently research, trade and handle stock investments myself. Everytime I attempt to go down that road I get overly frustrated with just setting up an account.

I have been meaning to have a sit down with the broker that I talked about in my original posting. I have to admit I didn't like his personality and was put off by his ego but the thing I really liked was that he is paid only by a percentage of your profits. If you don't make a return...he doesn't either. Flat rate to execute a trade, no management fees, etc. This was the first time I had heard of this. Maybe it's common but it is exactly what I have been wanting for years. Hopefully I'll get off my procrastinating butt and sit down with him before the end of the year.

To Redbug: I don't know about new metal $$$. I suspect ( don't really know) it hasn't changed much yet. I would think there is a lot of sellers out there sitting on some high dollar inventories and until those are moved out prices will remain pretty high.
I never buy "new" metal anyway. I buy all my metal from the local salvage yard and it has dropped a great deal. He has periods when he has a lot of "like new" steel that I suspect must be from local manufacturers who are cleaning out their leftover materials. I have no idea where this comes from since most factories and large manufacturers are a thing of the past in S. Illinois but he gets it from somewhere. Sometimes he has just about anything from round, flat, angle, tube, channel, etc that you could want and other times he has nothing but true scrap but for the most part, if it is in the yard and hasn't been sorted he sells it all for for a flat "scrap" price. I have gotten some awesome deals buying this way.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #24  
Because of the financial crisis, which has spread over the world in the past month (the Dutch government has bought one bank into state owenership, and did capital investments in another two) the scrap prices are next to nothing:

Before summer i got 28 eurocents per kg. Right now the price is 2 or 3 cents, but most scrapyards dont accept new material, because they have heaps of scrap stacked in their yard, because they were hoping that the prices would get back soon, after it dropped to 12 eurocent last month.

Several scrapyards are bankrupt because they have their liquid capital tied up in scrap that aint worth a sh*t right now....

How is the situation in America ? do they take scrap at all ? Do the prices for new steel drop ?


Last week I was checking out a JD 420W at one of my local salvage yards. A nice tractor but didn't have a pto shaft or air cleaner so I passed.

The owner was lamenting his poor timing since he still has a lot of scrap steel in his yard that he wants to sell. Said it was over $400/ton in Sep and now it's more like $50/ton. He thinks the drop in price has been caused by less demand for scrap steel from China which, in turn, is connected with the global financial mess. I'm no economist, but it sounds reasonable to me.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #25  
Last week I was checking out a JD 420W at one of my local salvage yards. A nice tractor but didn't have a pto shaft or air cleaner so I passed.

The owner was lamenting his poor timing since he still has a lot of scrap steel in his yard that he wants to sell. Said it was over $400/ton in Sep and now it's more like $50/ton. He thinks the drop in price has been caused by less demand for scrap steel from China which, in turn, is connected with the global financial mess. I'm no economist, but it sounds reasonable to me.

Scrap steel price is in the toilet, but steel prices from suppliers are creeping up.

I just returned from my supplier's shop where I placed an order for 200 ft of 2"x1"x1/8" channel (ten 20-ft sticks). Cost was $1.58/ft up from $1.35/ft a few months ago. My timing also sucks.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #26  
That's interesting about metal...there seems to be no connection between the low scrap metal prices and the high price for new metal. You would think they would be related...that's something I would have thought were connected.
 
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   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #27  
I think in most products that require raw resources,there will be a time delay before you see a price drop. Say I have 50 chickens and need 500 lbs of feed for a month. I paid $75 for the feed. This week,the feed is $48. Should I drop the prices of eggs to match the price of feed this week and eat $27 myself? This is why so many companies are going to "on time" material deliveries,but even then there is a lapse. Things really get ugly when someone goes on strike or there is a disaster of some sorts and there is no inventory to rely on.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #28  
I received $30/ton for unprepared metal last week in central ohio. It was over $200 in the spring.
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #29  
Just loaded a truckload of al in florida to haul to a mill -- prices were unreal and only 4 small loads btought in while i was there, .30 for Al, >25 for brass, .02 for lead -- they said they havent crushed a car in 3 weeks!
 
   / Do scrapyards still take scrap ? #30  
Has anyone seen steel T-posts for barb wire fencing starting to come down? I bought them for years ( 6ft ) for 1.75 -2.00, I was building fence this spring and they were $3 each, then in Aug. they were $4.65!!! . It won't be long until they become the new "copper" to theives. So maybe we will see prices return to some level of normal.

Jack
 
 
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