Stock Market v. metal price

Don't confuse precious metals with scrap metal. Remember, the primary use for the metals we scrap (iron, steel, copper, brass) is industrial/manufacturing. So it makes sense that those metals will most likely follow the trend of the economy. Gold on the other hand is primarily bought and sold as an investment - a hedge against inflation. While silver is considered a "precious" metal, it's use in electronics means that it's value is affected by manufacturing trends much more than Gold.

Today the stock market plummeted 500pts. Gold on the other hand was predicted to reach $2k/oz by year's end.

Originally Posted by Billiard MD

Don't confuse precious metals with scrap metal.

Seconded, also, don't pay too much attention to the prices of gold, and especially silver. JP Morgan is rumored to have a bad position and has been manipulating the prices by naked shorting in order to keep the prices down. Quote from http://www.chase-sucks.com/?p=63 follows:

JP Morgan Chase bought Bear Stearns in March of 2008, and as a result they inherited an enormous “short” position on silver that they had to somehow not lose Billions of dollars on. To keep things simple, a “short” is basically a bet that the price of something will go down by a certain date. For instance, if I thought the stock for Chase Bank would go down over the next month, I could buy a 30-day option to short the stock, and if the price went down I could make a nice profit. However, if the price goes up I would lose A LOT of money.

And a quote from sfgate:

In fact, reports indicate that JPM is short more paper silver than physically exists in the world.

I also read a rumor (can't remember the source) that some of the major metal warehouses are growing tired of JP Morgan's crap, and want to force their hand an therefore ruin them. But that may not happen since one, it's a rumor, and two if the US gov't. is behind it they wouldn't throw JPM under the bus.

If you want to use market info to help you make decisions on how or when to sell scrap, pay attention to things like if Nucor is buying, or has recently bought steel (if you're in ferrous), or learn who other big players in the various scrap markets are, and if they've recently made large purchases, or the time elapsed since a major purchase. Supply and demand ought to rule, but unfortunately doesn't when entities are allowed to hold large positions, (as is the case with naked short selling).

One thing I am personally certain of, is that with the amount of "money" being "printed" all finite resources' relative value will increase in the short term, especially if the Fed goes ahead with QE3.

QE == Quantitative Easing == Creating more money from thin air.
QE3 == Expected to occur soon.