During Irving, Texas-based Commercial Metals Company's (CMC) quarterly conference call, President and CEO of CMC, Joe Alvarado, acknowledged that after a drop in US domestic scrap prices in October, the expectation that scrap prices could drop as much as $40/mt in November is "unreasonable." Other global raw materials prices such as iron ore have already declined significantly in recent weeks and months, but US scrap prices have been pretty steady over the last nine months. Alvarado noted that "2011 was an unprecedented period of scrap stability," but he wouldn't count on the same scenario for 2012 given the long history of scrap pricing.
CMC's Americas Recycling segment had an operating profit of $10.8 million in Q4 2011, a $5.6 million increase compared to the same period in 2010 due to higher average selling prices and higher shipments.