huge price drop here in ne pa

Ya it scares me, because I just started buying junking cars. I literally renting the uhaul trailer and paying whatever current shred price by the weight of the car. Do this out of necessity till I can afford a 1500 16ft trailer. So in simplicity I'm paying 50-75 more than its worth just for the pleasure of stripping it and making money off the parts. Don't get me wrong, I made 400 in parts in 3 days. But I'm afraid I buy at current pricing, then two days later when I move it to the yard, it drops 3c and costs me money. In fact last car I did was 7.5c lb and that was Friday last week. Today I'm getting another one at same price. And then found out the yard dropped to .0575 today. So it already cut me by 50 but I agreed to price on van. I'm just afraid now I start buy at .575 and 2 days later its down to 2c lb. But the + side to the equation is due to renting trailer I'm stripping van with a helper in 8 or less hours. I mean everything including motor, trans, etc. Plus where I live I don't need a zoning office up my ass like years a go.

Steel contracts are typically set month to month. They should be settled early next week so whatever price your yard is paying next week should be safe for a while. You can buy based on that. Toward the end of next month try to talk to a buyer or manager at the yard. They should at least be able to tell you what they expect to happen in March. Essentially we are all brokers, and surprises aren't good for the facilitation of transactions. So the people you do business with should be pretty straight forward with what they know about market conditions.

Originally Posted by ccantu

Steel contracts are typically set month to month. They should be settled early next week so whatever price your yard is paying next week should be safe for a while. You can buy based on that. Toward the end of next month try to talk to a buyer or manager at the yard. They should at least be able to tell you what they expect to happen in March. Essentially we are all brokers, and surprises aren't good for the facilitation of transactions. So the people you do business with should be pretty straight forward with what they know about market conditions.

Although most scrap metal indexes are bi-monthly, scrap metal is a commodity and the big boys are constantly changing their investment strategies. Around here the value of scrap metal is changing daily and I can verify that is the same in another mid-west location. Yesterday a commitment for price was given and today the price dropped $ 15 a ton. They honored yesterdays price because of the volume that I haul. Do not expect business as usual, everyone is trying to hedge their bets.