Feeling the pain.

For the larger e-waste companies in here...I need to say nothing to you...you all ready know.

But to those who do not buy and sell e-waste should know or will know...prices are dropping like a rock. Reason being gold dropped worse than a drunk fat man at a bar.

For us large buyers who buy things by the pallet or drums full of memory...we just lost a ton of money.

I am sending out what I can and holding onto the high dollar items. I am going to try to keep my prices the same in hopes that gold comes back up at the start of this week due to people getting a good night rest. How true that will be...unknown.

For anyone who wants to KNOW why we dont jump our prices when gold sky rockets...its because of this...we can spend 10 grand or more on the avg week on scrap...when gold drops $100 our 10grand investment just turned into a 9,000 investment...and dropping.

When gold drops...our buyers drop off the face of the earth...or...pay like crap...

P.s computerscrapper lets hold onto our beers...its going to be good ride I think...When you get your new list let me know how bad of a hit you took on it..I will do the same when my list comes in this Monday.

I wouldn't panic just yet. I have seen nothing in any world ecomic indicators that would cause Gold to drop permanently. my guess is some very big players just profit taking. However middlle income families world wide do include Gold as an investment against inflation or failing currency, and they do make up a decient percentage of the buys. It could be they are pulling back as they run out of money.

I don't follow your price list close enough to know when the current one came out but I suspect that gold has not fallen to the level it was when your list came out. When you quote someone a price for something they want to send in undoubtedly that price is only good for a reasonable amount of time so your not to far out if prices drop like they did last week. Obviously your not new to the gold market and understand the volitilty, had you just jumped in two weeks ago with a majority of your reserves, well then there would be cause for concern.

In my opinion most don't realize how volatile the e-scrap end user pricing system is. Even the slightest movement in gold generally brings about a price change. Like Easy, I generally try to maintain a certain level even when there are price changes. I receive changes every 24 hours give or take but most often keep our buying level even.

I have been watching the gold prices closely. Most experts said that gold will rally again in the coming week but many of the same experts also said that Bernie Madoff was a good investment, so you really never know.

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Originally Posted by ComputerScrapper

In my opinion most don't realize how volatile the e-scrap end user pricing system is. Even the slightest movement in gold generally brings about a price change............
I have been watching the gold prices closely. Most experts said that gold will rally again in the coming week but many of the same experts also said that Bernie Madoff was a good investment, so you really never know.

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No they dont understand when price goes up or down it changes what we get per pound. It may only change a few cents to a few dollars on some items...but this is a real deep drop in gold...its going to hurt if it wont come back up.

computerscrapper...I have been keeping a sharp eye on it as well...its been slowly going down and when read the news I think its going to stay down...somewhere in the 1700 is my guess....But...I hope you are right and it jumps back up..I am sending a load of items later this week...I am going to watch it and see what happens.

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This will keep up until falling stocks and screams of deflation scare Ben the Bernancubus so badly that he pumps out more dollars.

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Thus after a correction, silver and gold will come roaring back.

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I took this quote from the gold site, there is a lot of guessing going on there.http://silver-and-gold-prices.goldprice.org/

most think there is a mountain of Gold in them thar computers when we know ther is really a minute quantity in each and it takes a lot of Gold plate to make an ounce . so when gold dropps $50 per oz, imagin how much that $15 for ram has to drop. The major cost for people like me is shipping and fuel that is one factor we know is going to rise continually and never drop. as shipping and fuel cost rises the profit in computers becomes more amd more marginal, plus in many areas the scrap computer prices have been artificially inflated by the falce impression they are loaded with Gold Gold Gold, just take a look at the auction sites, scral computers going for $20 each or more. That said Gold will hit $2000 by the end of the year as long as people have money to buy it. just my .02.

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Originally Posted by olddude

most think there is a mountain of Gold in them thar computers when we know ther is really a minute quantity in each and it takes a lot of Gold plate to make an ounce . so when gold dropps $50 per oz, imagin how much that $15 for ram has to drop. The major cost for people like me is shipping and fuel that is one factor we know is going to rise continually and never drop. as shipping and fuel cost rises the profit in computers becomes more amd more marginal, plus in many areas the scrap computer prices have been artificially inflated by the falce impression they are loaded with Gold Gold Gold, just take a look at the auction sites, scral computers going for $20 each or more. That said Gold will hit $2000 by the end of the year as long as people have money to buy it. just my .02.

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Olddude you don't know how right you are....I have run into so many people that belileve that there are thousands of dollars of gold in every computer...Sad thing is that they do not like it when you tell them that there is not that much. I have had people argue with me for hours about how much gold a computer actually contains. They have no idea that this business is all about volume, not individual pieces.

What's a new desktop cost nowadays? Bare bones model around 400/500? and then up from there. Why people would think that a computer would have thousand of dollars worth of gold and then be sold for hundreds is beyond me.

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Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

What's a new desktop cost nowadays? Bare bones model around 400/500? and then up from there. Why people would think that a computer would have thousand of dollars worth of gold and then be sold for hundreds is beyond me.

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Blame it on the internet! Most of the people that come to me say that they were looking on the internet and found out that there was gold in a computer and then find out that the price of gold is so high and they start to jump to conclusions.

A bare bone system is like $300 or so. You can get a nice pc for $500.

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Originally Posted by easyrecycle

A bare bone system is like $300 or so. You can get a nice pc for $500.

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I haven't bought a computer since '06. (My first Mac :) ) Just tossing generic numbers out. I still think people are crazy!

CS, I think you're right on that.

The gaming machine I want to build would cost me about 3 grand but its 1200 just in video cards. Well thats my current dream machine anyway. But easy is right you can build a real nice computer for about 500.

One idiot once told me "The chips are worth their weight in gold"

hahaha At least I had a larf about it.

LOL did you offer to sell that idiot all your chips for 50% of spot?

For us we know exactly how much we are going to take a hit regardless of the price. If the spot drops 100 bucks we know we are going to lose .30/lb on our boards. If it drops 50 we know our boards will be .15 cents less. So our say spot was at 1700/oz, and gold dropped 49/oz, we still get purchased at the 1700/oz price, if gold falls 51/oz we will get purchased at the 1650/oz range.

This way there is no questioning what price we are at, which in turn makes it easy for us. We actually are sitting on 10000+ lbs of boards because we will not take a 3000 dollar hit.

On a brighter note we did just purchase an additional 300oz of silver. Love bargain shopping.

wish I had the funds to buy a 100 ounce bar right now silver is sitting at 28 an ounce and falling like a rock.

escrap yes there is some understanding when gold drops the price drops but you kinda failed to say how the buyers don't like to buy very much when gold is dropping...they LOVE to buy when gold is going up...as they make money...but lose it when its going down.

I don't know about you....but I am SHOCKED that its at $1630 right now! Thats a drop of $270

Yeah... even the scrappers are feeling this. The pile of motherboards I did this weekend are selling about .$30/lb less then my last shipment. All the components lost value. Can't blame the buyers, they follow the market.

Scrap yard zinged me also this AM. Communication wire dropped to $.35/lb and power cords went to $.85/lb. Aluminum dropped to $.45 and #2 copper is at $2.35. Batteries are at $.15/lb. Thank god this isn't my full time job... or even a major source of my second income. This would really be bothering me if it were!

Easy, There is most certainly some fear in buy when prices are dropping, But I think buyers have that weighed into their prices. With that being said, I don't think that most people will let go of their boards when prices are falling hard, so the buyers don't have to buy as much.