The United States' ferrous scrap market appears to have peaked, with buyers and sellers concurring that there is no further upside left for prices in February, but participants were mixed on where the market will head next month.
"For this cycle, for sure it feels like the market has peaked. The only question, in my mind, is how soon does the market start to give back some of the gains from the last three months," a Midwestern mill buyer said. Ferrous scrap prices have regained $80-90 per gross ton over the past 90 days after months of constant price declines choked off scrap supply. Even though prices have moved up significantly from October 2019 levels, many dealers felt inflows were still falling short of expectations. When the January trade rolled around, mills unexpectedly received an overwhelming amount of offers, particularly for shredded scrap. The amount of shred one mill was offered this month was five times the volume offered in December.This had triggered concern...