Cash out now or not??

I keep reading these doom and gloom posts about prices taking a protracted dive and thinking should I clean house or wait it out.
Looking at the LME projected prices, it seems everything is trending downward. I am thinking about cashing everything in at todays price and start collecting for tomorrows market. Mostly copper and brass. Also, aluminum and copper radiators. Couple hundred pounds each.
This is all stuff I pick up for free, so it is all money. What is everybody else thinking about future markets for our product?? Cash in now or see if it comes back?? I am thinking cash now and start the piles anew....The whole bird in the hand thing.

something just crossed my mind, i'm not really trying to sell this idea, but I notice when things we need to buy (such as gas for instance) goes up, it goes up quickly, but when (and if) it comes down, it does so ever so slowly. I'm thinking things we sell might work quite the opposite?

Do you need the money or the space now? Generally people who cash it in will spend the money on something else (needed or not). Commodity markets go up and down all the time, you could just wait for the next bump or just keep it around untill you actually need the cash.

I suppose everyones' yard is different but there are some things that changed very little by me. Aluminum sheet, cast, and extruded as well as batteries, motors, brass, and tin all have dropped very little so I'm still hauling those in. Afterall I like my local yard and they have to survive also.

Copper, prepped iron,aluminum cans, and stainless really took a dive so I'll stockpile those for awhile. Like was said above, if you need the money or the space then sell something every week and you'll end up hitting the highs and the lows and it should all even out.

I think a real indicator of the future prices of most metals would be gold itself. Granted, this isn't absolute.... The price of gold could go down one day and the price of copper might go up the next. However, this does remind me of a year or two ago when there were commercials all over TV about cash for gold schemes and how you could turn in your unwanted gold to pay your mortgage/alimony/child support. Then, as the price of gold started to wane a little, new commercials came on the air, featuring a well dressed actor riding a horse on a ranch somewhere telling us how he's secured his future by investing in gold, then telling us that we can too with a free pamphlet....

What this tells me is that when Larry the Cable Guy starts showing up on commercials telling us about the intrinsic value of aluminum and how we can make a better future for ourselves and our children by investing in it, we're all screwed.:p

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What this tells me is that when Larry the Cable Guy starts showing up on commercials telling us about the intrinsic value of aluminum and how we can make a better future for ourselves and our children by investing in it, we're all screwed.

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And now he's "hawking" heartburn medicine.

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

And now he's "hawking" heartburn medicine.

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Probably had to after all those Nutri-System meals he ate. Those things are horrible for your gut.

The beauty of Cash for Gold is they offered you less then half the value of your gold so even if the price dropped they win anyway. Around my town there are just as many signs on buildings "Buying Gold" as there are check into cash places. The funny thing is when people go to sell their gold jewelry they find out (even with the huge spike in gold prices) they overpaid a bunch and still can't get much money back. And if you purchased a gold ring with a diamond in it they toss the diamond back to you since it is worthless.

Aluminum is going to be used for a very long time because of how easily it is shaped, strength vs weight, and easy to recycle so it will have some value even when everything else is made of composites (polymers, carbon).

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The funny thing is when people go to sell their gold jewelry they find out (even with the huge spike in gold prices) they overpaid a bunch and still can't get much money back. And if you purchased a gold ring with a diamond in it they toss the diamond back to you since it is worthless.

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I have a cousin in the jewelry business. Typically, the markup on jewelry is 200-300%. (Or that's what it was a few years ago when we last talked about that business.)

Asking on here whether to dump your scrap due to the current prices points is just like asking your stockbroker whether to buy or sell based on timing the market.
It's a risk either way, and no one can answer best for you except yourself. Even then, it is only a semi-educated guess.

When I bought my first truck it was from a scrapper. He got out of the business because steel was down to a penny a pound. (Or a cent, if you prefer...)

That happens burly i think a few determined forum members will become yard owners in that time period.

To stock pile or not to stock pile-that is the question. For me, I am going to wait it out just a while. 45-50$ less on a ton of shred, thats 200$ on 4 ton.. worth the wait for me. Until then, I'll break some more stuff down and prep. in the meantime.
That is the beauty of doing this part-time...
Also I don't mind putting the squeeze on the yards. The price goes down when the market floods.

Well, took my own advice and cashed it out this morning. No regrets. 118 lbs of yellow brass, 48 lbs #1 copper, 91 lbs of #2, and 7 lbs bare and brite copper, for a total of $664.60. Not bad for 2 months of part time scrapping. I will start all the piles over today as I already got some scrap copper and an 1 1/2 inch brass gate valve to start with today. Being a plumber by trade helps a lot, and I always clean up after myself. Mention to my customers that I offer to pick up scrap and they seem to remember, when they or anyone they know has some scrap and they call me up. It's a beautiful thing.

I may not do volume each time I go to the yard. But it is close to where I work and can get there afterwards. I keep from spending my money by separating scrap income from my personal income. Just keep records and use the separate account for scrap income to pay expenses like tools and supplies. So I dont usually Stockpile unless on the weekends or it has been super slow. I also dont have alot of storage space either. I do most of my break down in the bed of my truck for now.