Forgive me while I ramble on a bit with some thoughts that have been running through my head.
Typically when the world is in turmoil and the economy is upside down there is not a lot of stuff going on and not a lot of demand for materials. This is my assumption.
Right now, the world is upside down and there is a rather large demand for materials. I base this on the fact that the price for scrap metals is basically at an all time high. Even being a recession where demand should be low. In my opinion, this demand has been greatly driven by China. I see no drop in their demand in the foreseeable future.
Now we all of a sudden have a natural disaster in Japan. They will rebuild and for all practical purposes, probably add an extra layer of demand on materials. They will have no less than two power plants to build from scratch as well as the infrastructure that was wiped out as well. (The two plants they are dumping sea water into in order to stave off meltdown, will now never be usable again. Those plants are now a wasteland).
If you take all of this demand for materials and couple it with a possible recovery of some sort I postulate that the scrap metal prices have nowhere to go but up right now no matter what happens. We will obviously see some highs and lows, but I look to see much higher prices in the future.
What say you?
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