Metal Monday January 17, 2022 with Nick Snyder and Brett Ekart.
Play the youtube video and follow along with the text below.
Nick Snyder:
All right. Welcome everybody. Another beautiful Monday. And we're talking about the market. How you doing Brett?
Brett Ekart:
I'm good, man. I went and sweated out a couple beers this morning, left over from our company party on Saturday, which was awesome. We had a good time, our first of two celebrations for us turning 50.
Nick Snyder:
Part one is done. And part two is coming in July.
Brett Ekart:
Yep. So we're pretty stoked about that. So as far as how's the day going today, so far so good.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah. The markets are, copper had a nice run and 10 cents came off of it, but we're still in that $3.40 or $4.40 area.
Brett Ekart:
I was like, $3.40? I might have to look at some stuff.
Nick Snyder:
$4.40. Yeah. We're still in the $4.40 area, which is where we've been. We've been floating around $4.30 to $4.50 on the Comex.
Nick Snyder:
And honestly that is still killer. I've said it many, many Mondays, anything above $4, I'm a happy camper. Granted, we are all hoping to get to $5 at some point and I still think that we'll be here. Matter of when. If I had that answer, I'd be...
Brett Ekart:
We spent a lot of '21 talking about when it was going to hit $5 and it didn't. But maybe it'll just give us something to talk about in '22. Like, when does it hit $5?
Nick Snyder:
I'm saying I'm going to call it, second quarter, we're hitting $5.
Brett Ekart:
Let's go.
Nick Snyder:
Calling it.
Brett Ekart:
I'm okay with that. I'd be okay with it. Everything else looks strong. Aluminum had a great run last week. Nickel is on fire, which is driving the stainless pricing. The big thing, I just want to encourage people to pay attention to though right now, especially on the East Coast now, is logistics is fucked up.
Nick Snyder:
Yeah.
Brett Ekart:
We were running freight rates, going to the Midwest on some material and logistics and I like to think we're pretty good at logistics. That's probably one of our strengths, one of our top three strengths, is just our ability to move in, move out, move our own material. That's why I think our commercial business is strong because we're very strong on logistics. And take it from a guy that runs freight rates and listens to freight rates a lot, it's expensive now.
Nick Snyder:
How much more? Like 25% more than a year ago?
Brett Ekart:
Yes. At least.
Nick Snyder:
At least. Okay.
Brett Ekart:
And some lanes are even crazier right now.
Nick Snyder:
Close to 50% more?
Brett Ekart:
It's expensive. Yeah. We're looking at what could at one time been a $0.06-$0.07 to go to certain spots, now it's $0.14-$0.15 cents, you know?
Brett Ekart:
Yeah. I mean it's some of it's doubled. It's crazy. And it all depends on what time of year, what lane you're going. But that's kind of why I feel it's kind of laughable on the ferrous side to think that the price came off $60 or $50, in some areas. I'm hearing whispers though that some people aren't getting the material that they either thought they might get or that the price got driven too far down.
Nick Snyder:
Doesn't surprise me. I think people are pissed, they feel like they're going to sit. When they get pissed and people have the space and the capital to sit, they're going to sit.
Brett Ekart:
Yeah. And so I feel like, it's early to tell, but I feel like February, you might get some of that back. If you really got dinged in January. I mean, we'll see, time will tell, but it felt like some people got a little bit greedy.
Nick Snyder:
So what's pushing the logistic clusterfuck?
Brett Ekart:
Truck drivers, lack of truck drivers, lack of equipment.
Nick Snyder:
Just finding them?
Brett Ekart:
We ordered three trucks for 2022. Our Peterbilt guy said, "You'd be lucky to get one".
Nick Snyder:
And we ordered those, a while ago.
Brett Ekart:
We ordered them a while ago. Right? So equipment's tough to come by. Trailers, we had ordered some more flatbeds, they said they're so far behind in their production. It's just manufacturing of equipment.
Brett Ekart:
I don't care if you got the nicest, best trucking fleet out there. If you don't have a driver sitting behind the steering wheel, that truck's just a pile of iron and aluminum and copper and fiberglass or whatever, you know what I mean? But it ain't worth shit. So you got to have those CDL truck drivers to make that equipment go. You can talk all about the autonomous driver, these rigs all you want, but that ain't here. That technology is not arrived. Yet, there's a lot of logistics, stuff that needs to happen that's arrived, it's here, and shit isn't getting moved. And if it is, it's getting moved for a grip of money.
Nick Snyder:
Well, I don't think that's going away then.
Brett Ekart:
No. Pay attention to that. They thought logistics and supply chain was a big issue in '21. If something doesn't correct in '22, it's going to be real painful.
Nick Snyder:
Okay. Well we do have a new episode of CATs Corner, coming out for our converter brand.
Brett Ekart:
Nice.
Nick Snyder:
If you want to check that out, that's kind of like this episode, but we're solely talking about the PGM markets. So everyone go over there and check it out. I'll put the link on this post for that as well.
Brett Ekart:
And we got something super cool coming down the line here real soon.
Nick Snyder:
It should be here February or March.
Brett Ekart:
We're pretty stoked. We're going to get another reclaimed division going. We'll get into it one of these days here soon, but we're excited. 2022 is going to be a good year.
Nick Snyder:
We just thought we should create a few more companies.
Brett Ekart:
We were bored, we didn't have anything to do.
Nick Snyder:
All right. Thanks everybody.
Brett Ekart:
Thank you.