Cold temperatures and widespread winter storms continue to have an impact on scrap collect, sources note, adding that “terrible” scrap inflows will have many sellers fighting to hold February prices at sideways.
“The other thing that you have to look at is that the buys aren’t expected to be huge next month because a lot of the mills bought heavy in December,” a source said. Also, of note is that Northstar in the Northeast was down two days in the past week, and another source pointed out that mill is still trying to determine how that will impact his February buy.
“The mills are expected to buy less, but the other hand, yards’ inventories aren’t huge right now and their inflows aren’t great either, so it’s basically a wash.”
And while some have reported that David Joseph is already trying to test lower pricing, the big question is whether yards will bite.
“I think one of the big concerns is that with [scrap yard] inventories not being great, and inflows not being great, that if the yards need to lower their peddler prices, they might not be able to get their hands on the scrap that they need.”
February scrap is expected to start trading next week. Prices are likely to settle before end of business on Friday, February 4.