Metal Monday August 2, 2021 with Nick Snyder and Brett Ekart.
Play the youtube video and follow along with the text below.
Nick Snyder:
All right. We are officially in August.
Brett Ekart:
Time to put our phones down and actually get something done today.
Nick Snyder:
There you go. I mean, this is a very powerful tool.
Brett Ekart:
Yes, yes.
Nick Snyder:
But we're in August, copper's looking strong, Ferrous, rumblings of it going down a little bit is what everything I read last week. What are you hearing on that?
Brett Ekart:
Same. I'm feeling like they're going to... The steel mills, the strikers are going to try and push it down this month. The export price unit softened up a little bit towards the end of last week, two weeks of July. So the price of new steel isn't coming down. The supply chain issues are still there. But I do feel like, I mean, it's like an auction, you're not going to pay a dollar more than you have to, to buy the material. And if the export market is soft, then the steel mills are going to lick their chops and buy iron cheaper. I was having this conversation last night with a guy and he said, "This is bullshit." And while I do agree, it's also one of those deals that what are you going to do? I mean, you either sell, you're a seller, or you're not.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah.
Brett Ekart:
That's what amounts to. Right?
Nick Snyder:
You sell it or sit on it.
Brett Ekart:
Sell or sit, but make a decision. Don't be a flat squirrel.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah.
Brett Ekart:
Don't sit there and fucking left, right. And then next thing you know, boom, they're going to run right over the top of you. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes down, but I anticipate them trying to take some gas out of it.
Nick Snyder:
Gotcha. And we'll know next week. Copper, though, continues to be north of 450.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah. 448 this morning on the Comex.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah. And then, I mean, it looks strong. Aluminum looks strong, nickel looks strong, everything looks strong there. So I think that's a good sign overall where we're going to head into this third quarter of the year.
Brett Ekart:
Yep.
Nick Snyder:
And then, the PGMs, I mean, they haven't moved a lot.
Brett Ekart:
No. They're at least a little bit green this morning, which was good. That's always a bonus. I think there's a lot of room for that to run. Too. I mean, back to being optimistic, but I think that the PGMs... I was just reading an article here this morning and in the last probably month or two, the dollar is just, I mean, it got exponentially stronger, which then makes it, and the Chinese market has softened up. And I think that that's what's pushing the PGMs around. So, I mean, we're obviously big investors in the PGM business. So we watch that deal pretty carefully. There's some big swings that can happen, positively and negatively. But I feel like there's a lot of room in there for that to push higher. If we can get some relief in the strength of the dollar and it starts to soften up, I think you're going to see it reflect back on the PGMs.
Nick Snyder:
Yep. Yep. And I saw on your LinkedIn posts that you made a comment, $5 copper's coming.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
And someone went over the top on you and said $6 copper.
Brett Ekart:
My boy, the man, Cris Proler down in Texas. He's been saying that for a while, but then he followed that back up with, "Shit. Now I said six, it will go to three." Which I mean, I think it will see five before it sees three and I really believe that. But I feel like there's a lot of room in there still and I also put it as a side note, even though I'm cheering, hoping, thinking, feeling like $5 copper is a real option here in the next little bit, it's not like I'm sitting on a million pounds of copper, banking on it to happen.
Nick Snyder:
No. I mean, I see the loads going out every other day.
Brett Ekart:
I'm a seller. I'm going to try to sell into strength if I can. Sometimes I sell early. Sometimes I feel like if I sell a load early, it helps the market come up. So then I can sell some more after that.
Nick Snyder:
So everyone should thank you. There you go.
Brett Ekart:
The reason the market came up was I sold a load early, or two.
Nick Snyder:
Well cool. Well, a real quick shout out this weekend. My daughter took that money you gave her when she dog sat.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
So she took it out. She's been wanting to go to the mall for a long time. So she brought her own money and yesterday that's what we did. She just bought all these little things with her own money.
Brett Ekart:
All the stuff she wanted to buy.
Nick Snyder:
But she felt such a good... Because I didn't pay anything, she felt like, "Oh, like I earned this." And she bought me like a Orange Julius.
Brett Ekart:
Nice.
Nick Snyder:
So, it was just a quick shout out to you and her and it's just good to see that from younger people, that drive to earn it themselves, because you hear a lot about the workforce right now, and people not working, and I'm a hopeless, positive guy, and I just always think it's going to bounce back out.
Brett Ekart:
Part of team management, I promise, I preach it, parenting. If you got strong parents that have a strong work ethic and you can have a strong work ethic. But if you just give, still give your kids whatever they want, even though you have a strong work ethic, that's not something that I don't think just naturally flows into DNA.
Nick Snyder:
You've got to teach it.
Brett Ekart:
Not like brown hair and blue eyes, but like you have to teach them that strong work ethic. You can't just go, "Well, I grew up broke and now that I've made it, I'm going to give my kids whatever they want." Well, you're ruining them I think. You still have to teach them, even though you're growing up as broke as I was when I was a kid, you got a lot better situation than I did.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah.
Brett Ekart:
It still comes back to parenting and saying, "Here, let me show you what it's going to take."
Nick Snyder:
Well, even yesterday she was so excited to go to the mall. I'm like, "All right, let's wake up early. Let's get there when they open." But before I was like, "Hey, we got to go to grandpa's." And she's like, "Why?" I was like, "We got to sweep his roof off."
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
So she got up there with a broom and sweeped his roof off because it's just something... He's older, I don't feel real comfortable with him up there. So we did it. So even then she didn't complain at all, she didn't make any money either. It's just something we did. So, I just want to bring that up because you hear a lot of negative things about people in workforce, and look in the mirror. The people that raised all those people in the workforce now are the ones complaining, which makes me laugh.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah, better look in the mirror, boys and girls. Have a great day.
Nick Snyder:
All right. Thanks everybody.