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    April 11, 2024

    Unraveling the enigma of April's scrap market dynamics

    Written by Raymond Peterson

    For those of you old enough to remember The King and I, the April scrap market seems to be a puzzlement. While it is now clear that everything went sideways, one could clearly make an argument for prices to have been down.

    With the announcement of up to seven April outages in the flat rolled sector of the steel industry and several other mills not running at full capacity, it would not have been difficult to push prices down at least another $20 per gross ton (gt).

    Raymond Peterson

    Raymond Peterson began his career in the metals business as a laborer at the Joseph Behr & Sons scrap yard in Rockford, Ill., in 1970. Since that time Peterson has traded most of the raw materials necessary for the making of steel. He has worked for several scrap and ferro-alloy companies, a large international metals trading company, and two major banks. Peterson founded Memorial Resource Group in 1991 and continues to operate it, focusing primarily on supplying ferrous scrap to the steel and foundry industries.

    Read more from Raymond Peterson

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    October scrap market chatter

    Every month, SMU polls scrap market participants on a variety of topics—including prices, business conditions, and what they think the future holds. We received the data and comments below last week, before the October market had entirely settled. And as it turns out, survey respondents mostly got it right. Broadly speaking, all survey respondents said demand was stable (56%) or improving (44%). None reported a decline in demand. We haven't seen this many people reporting improving demand since February.

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    SMU scrap market survey results now available

    SMU’s October ferrous scrap market survey results are now available on our website to all premium members. After logging in at steelmarketupdate.com, visit the Pricing and Analysis tab and look under the “survey results” section for Ferrous Scrap Survey results. Past scrap survey results are also available under that selection. If you need help accessing the survey results or if your company would like to have your voice heard in our future surveys