Metal Monday August 16, 2021 with Nick Snyder and Brett Ekart.
Play the youtube video and follow along with the text below.
Nick Snyder:
Welcome everybody. Another Metal Monday. Sitting here with Brett. How you doing man?
Brett Ekart:
Doing well, buddy. Yourself?
Nick Snyder:
Doing good. I had a good weekend. Our last weekend with the kids before they start school, at least. And it was fun. So...
Brett Ekart:
I like it. I like it. I celebrated my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary this weekend.
Nick Snyder:
That's a milestone right there.
Brett Ekart:
It's a big one. Yeah, we had a great time.
Nick Snyder:
Good.
Brett Ekart:
I was the DJ.
Nick Snyder:
I heard you killed it.
Brett Ekart:
I killed it. Killed it on the DJ. Made the playlist and pushed play. I actually pushed shuffle then pushed play.
Nick Snyder:
Oh, I see. Mixed it up.
Brett Ekart:
I saw I had a mix. Some Clint Black, some Bob Marley, some... I mean, some Doobie Brothers.
Nick Snyder:
Too Short?
Brett Ekart:
No, no, the crowd-
Nick Snyder:
It wasn't your party.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah. The crowd was not... My son, my young... My oldest boy was like, "Yeah." I think he would've thought that was all right but my in-laws weren't going for Too Short.
Nick Snyder:
One thing we did with the kids this week, which I think would be good for people to try, is we did one of those Escape Rooms. My oldest daughter, she's 15, she loves them. She's been hounding us to do them as a family for a long time and we had a coupon so we-
Brett Ekart:
Did you escape?
Nick Snyder:
Three minutes left, man. We made it and we only tried to kill each other a few times because gets a little nerve wracking in those things.
Brett Ekart:
Yep.
Nick Snyder:
But we did it. Everyone contributed, even our youngest who was pretty nervous about getting yelled at and making us fail.
Brett Ekart:
Ah-ha. Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
But it was a blast, man. So it was a good times. Well, anyway, into the market. We're down about 7 cents on copper today.
Brett Ekart:
No escaping-
Nick Snyder:
No-
Brett Ekart:
The shitty copper market this morning.
Nick Snyder:
No escaping shitty markets on Mondays, it seems like. So...
Brett Ekart:
The precious metals were off. I noticed platinum, palladium, rhodium were all off this morning. And mostly having to do a China from what I can read which, with the Chinese economy kind of posting some less than stellar numbers over the weekend, I think that's what's... The dollar gained some traction and-
Nick Snyder:
Good combination of the dollar.
Brett Ekart:
Combination of potentially weaker Chinese economy and the dollar gaining strength is never good for the commodities business but it's going to be one of those deals. It's the new cycle. I mean, one day it's the worst, the next day it's the best. It just kind of depends on-
Nick Snyder:
[inaudible 00:02:40] were trading between 4.20 and 4.50.
Brett Ekart:
We're definitely in a range, for sure.
Nick Snyder:
4.50 copper.
Brett Ekart:
Which is a... Copper hit 4.30 this morning.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah. Yeah. Right now it 4.30, 4.32.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
So I mean, really, that's still pretty good. Pretty good in my opinion.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah, it's not... If you hit over 4 dollar copper right now, you're in pretty decent shape. The problem is, and I think what some people are starting to see out there, is the reason that copper is able to hang where it's at is it's a supply. I think that there's a still a pretty decent demand out there for copper, especially good number one, number two copper chops. The demand is there. It's just, I feel like the supply is limited to a certain extent. So you have to extend your willingness to go out and get it and I think that's obviously why we developed Copper Reclaim was because we knew that we didn't want to wait for our customers to make... Or even potential customers to make a decision. We wanted to add one more layer of service to kind of help create that... Create the new customer but also help our existing customer and basically, with supply being tight, you got to find more ways to go get the material.
Nick Snyder:
Well, supply being tight and another side of that coin is these contractors are so damn busy because they're putting in crazy hours because they can't find help.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
So they don't have time to go recycle it. So if we can go to the job site, recycle it on the job site and weigh it, pay it right there, it just covers all the bases and they can keep working and it doesn't sit in a utility trailer or a garage for six months till they get a free day.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah. And it's not even a plug for Copper Reclaim per se as much as... It's just saying that when... Right now you win by getting creative and finding ways to get material in the door and I think that's one way that we've got creative with our business as a whole. It's just that, hey, we're willing to go the extra mile and I think eventually, whether the contractors are busy or not, you're also now kind of pushing the envelope of what's possible with commodities like copper, converters or whatever, your higher value items. Go to the source and go get them and that's kind of how we've built our business, is just customers service.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's how all... Most successful scrap parents have done it. You got to have service now.
Brett Ekart:
Oh, yeah.
Nick Snyder:
The material's not just going to show up.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah.
Nick Snyder:
You got to have service. You got to take care of your customers because if not, they'll just go somewhere else.
Brett Ekart:
And if they do show up and you treat them like shit, they won't... They'll go somewhere else. So, I mean, it's service on the front end and the back end. I mean, it's all the way around you got to take care of them. But as far as metals this morning, it is what it is. Aluminum, nickel, they've kind of flattened it out a little bit. Aluminum's strong right now. I'm seeing some crazy prices come across the board on some items where I'm like, "Oh wow." But, yeah, it feels like that we're still in a good run. Just feel like it's taking a breath.
Nick Snyder:
In a few weeks we'll know what ferrous does in September. I know it's early to know what that is but it feels like we're trading around the same new trading spectrum [crosstalk 00:06:31].
Brett Ekart:
I don't see much gas coming out of the ferrous market. I mean, they took the market down this month 10 to 20 bucks depending on the grade but it definitely feels like that was just because it could not necessarily because it... I feel like it depends on what gets delivered this month, supply side. The demand is there. People want to iron.
Nick Snyder:
They might give it back. A few people I've talked to thinks that they might give it back in September but we'll see.
Brett Ekart:
We'll see.
Nick Snyder:
So...
Brett Ekart:
Time will tell.
Nick Snyder:
Yes, sir.
Brett Ekart:
All right. Happy Monday.
Nick Snyder:
Thanks everybody.
Brett Ekart:
All right. Have a great day.