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[0:21]
Brett: Happy Metal Monday!
Nick: Yes sir, happy December. The last month of the year—it’s officially here. You can either go out like a winner on top or a loser on the bottom. Your choice.
Brett: Let’s go out as winners, man. Let’s do everything we can.
Nick: What’s the plan? We’ve got two full weeks and two half weeks left.
Brett: Yeah, and before we know it, it’ll be 2025—a new year. Back to zeroes across the board.
Nick: I never used to care much about New Year’s, but I do think it’s a cool time to reflect and refine some of your processes. Used correctly, it can be a good thing.
Brett: Yeah, New Year’s is fun. It’s a good time to spend with family and friends. You’ve got to carve out time for that.
[1:16]
Brett: I was talking to a guy in France, and he mentioned how they basically take the entire month of August off. The whole country just shuts down.
Nick: That’s wild.
Brett: Yeah, for us, the closest equivalent is Christmas and New Year’s, but even then, it’s not a full month—it’s just a few scattered days. And when the holidays fall in the middle of the week, like this year, it really messes with production and workflow.
Nick: It’s the worst for work schedules.
Brett: Exactly. But it’s good to have those moments to spend time with family and friends. Still, knowing the holidays are coming, you’ve got to push hard in the weeks before. You’re really squeezing a month of work into two and a half weeks.
Nick: Yeah, the weeks leading up to the holidays are always intense. Last week—Thanksgiving week—is one of my favorite weeks of the year. It’s about family, not presents, which I love. But those Monday through Wednesday workdays are so jam-packed.
Brett: For sure. This is technically a five-week month, but with holidays, you’re really looking at three and a half productive weeks.
[3:28]
Nick: How’s the price of scrap looking?
Brett: I talked to Chad about it for Bulls versus Bears, and we’ll have that out soon. Ferris doesn’t feel very positive right now, but Chad will break it down.
Nick: What about non-ferrous?
Brett: Non-ferrous is kind of flat. Copper’s around $4.13 to $4.14—sideways. It dipped a bit last Friday. Aluminum is holding strong at about $1.16. Lead and nickel are just hanging around, no real volatility.
Nick: A leveling out of prices isn’t necessarily a bad thing—it could lead to more stability.
Brett: Agreed. We’re buying a big load of copper from one of our good customers today. He asked me what I thought, and I told him it feels like it’s headed to $4.
Nick: Well, you’re the one who bet on $4.30, so you’ve got time to see that play out.
[4:50]
Brett: I’m still optimistic about 2025. This is the last lame-duck presidential month we have, and once the inauguration happens on January 20th, we could see some changes.
Nick: What are you most excited about?
Brett: Deregulation. As a business owner, you start to realize how hard it is to get anything done with all the red tape. Cutting that would be a huge win—not just for us, but for large-scale businesses too.
Nick: Absolutely.
Brett: I listened to a podcast this weekend about Argentina’s president. He’s been cutting government programs and workers, and it flipped their economy around. If we can get similar deregulation here, it could create a boom cycle for businesses like ours.
Nick: That would be huge for scrap, commodities, copper, aluminum, steel—all of it.
[6:52]
Brett: Exactly. Why did I vote for Trump? It’s not about the man—it’s about the policy. I care about what’s good for our business, our people, and the country.
Nick: I think 2025 is going to be wild, but I’m optimistic.
Brett: Me too.
[7:25]
Nick: Thank you, everyone. Look out for our newsletter and Bulls versus Bears later this week. Have a fantastic week and a great December!
[7:39]
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