Way to track trends in pricing?

Hello to everybody! I am new to this forum and am learning alot of very helpful information. I would like to know if there is some sort of weekly or daily report on the price that various metals and things are going for? I realize every scrap yard is a little different. I was hoping to check and see if there is certain items are rising in price or lowering as to when I should cash in stuff I have been holding waiting for the best time. Thank you!

I am new to the forum also! I just did some scrapping this weekend and the yard gave my brother and i the cash, reciept and price list for their location! I thought that was a really nice way to get us to do business with them again.

i use this. not sure if its accurate or not but i have it bookmarked and check it every afternoon

http://www.metalprices.com/

For some time now I've thought that the yards I go to should offer an email price list. Whether it was updated daily, weekly, whatever. Not sure how much time would be involved in updating and sending something like that out though.


Maybe they do. Haven't asked any of them yet.

Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

For some time now I've thought that the yards I go to should offer an email price list. Whether it was updated daily, weekly, whatever. Not sure how much time would be involved in updating and sending something like that out though.


Maybe they do. Haven't asked any of them yet.

I would love to see that. It is very simple and can be sent out in a matter of minutes. "Constant Contact" is a fantastic tool that I have used before in my businesses. they keep a database of email addresses. They have several templates that can be chosen from and once it is set up, a new daily can be sent out in just minutes. The cost for this service is about 15 dollars a month and that cov ers a database of 500 e-mail addresses. The cost per address drops after that. Figuring how many phone calls a place gets during the day asking for prices, i think it would be worth it to them. You can send out nice e-mails everyday or every hour if you want. No extra charge. When I had a restaurant/deli, we sent out a daily with our kunch and dinner specials, a weekly with coupons, and a nice monthly with recipes, jokes, cuopons, stories, etc. Very nice service.

Anyway, that would be nice to see some yards use.

someone recently posted an app for scrap yard prices, but not many yards are using it yet.

I suggested to my local yard that they should set up a website with prices that could be updated whenever they wanted; and they looked at me like I was talking Greek to them. They didn't have a clue what I meant. :confused::confused:

For me I do not try to predict the movements of the prices. I keep about 4-5 yards that I call when I get my loads. I go to the best one or two sometimes 2 trips. I have seen that when gas prices start to go up so does scrap.

I stopped by the yard today to drop off a load of stuff and asked the guy for a price list. He asked the sec. to print me one out. he saidthey change the prices once at the beginning of the month which I thought was kind of long. I figured weekly if not daily.

Originally Posted by vamped400

i use this. not sure if its accurate or not but i have it bookmarked and check it every afternoon

http://www.metalprices.com/

This is a good website to check, although no Scrap company will get the price it is trading at. That is for raw material. We work off a spread based on the demand from the mills. For example, Comex Copper could be trading at $4.25, but the scrap company will be getting $4.25 less $0.50 cents, then we have to work in our profit after we process the material for the mill. So never expect to get the price shown on this site.

I found another site that seemed pretty accurate, scrapmonster.com

Now just remember those are the average prices the yards are getting, from my experience I've seen the scrappers prices at about 30% of what scrapmonster is showing.

Originally Posted by Kris Kringle

Microsoft Xcel Spread Sheet and in one
column to the Left I put in the Metal then next column Put what yards I call and under each Respective yard I put the price of what each yard is paying.
http://www.kitcometals.com

Use google maps. You can make a map. Add the scrap yards that you go to an in the note part (only you can see) put in your info there. That why if they change there number or anything like that you can easily see that an ontop of that you can use google maps traffic to see what one would be the easiest one to get to (saves fuel)

Iron age or the prices off AMM.com are what almost every yard in America uses of course u need to pay for the site the prices are as accurate as you can get. They have a dedicated staff on pricing and daily news article its the CNN of the scrap, manufacturing, and steel industry. keep in mind peddler prices are always going to be different then industrial price.

good one here but you have to pay for it as well. http://www.recycle.net/

More here http://www.recycleinme.com/scrapreso...PriceHome.aspx

Originally Posted by dherik

I found another site that seemed pretty accurate, scrapmonster.com

Now just remember those are the average prices the yards are getting, from my experience I've seen the scrappers prices at about 30% of what scrapmonster is showing.

They arnt right. They say copper 1 is 3.10 or so, my yard is at 2.30

Check out fairsalvage.com its the main yard I use and are always bupdated vwith online pricing

If nothing else it could be a good reference point