In 1929, October 24th to be exact, Wall St. saw one of the largest selloffs known to man. The stock market lost over 5 billion in value on that day in 1929 and to put that into perspective a loaf of bread was 10 cents and a cup of coffee was a nickle (but don’t tell Starbucks or the coffee bean market may crash). Rumor had it that over 11 investors or stockbrokers had ended their lives that day. Stories that made a day of legend, when actually, there were no real reports of suicides at all as a mater of fact, October of 1929, went down as one of the lowest months for suicide ever recorded. The 3 summer months prior to October had each had more suicides in those months. Why such a story of macabre? The great scrap metal depression of 2008 resonated with us for some time. As a matter of fact some scrappers got out, some yards closed and a lot of people lost their jobs in the industry.

The Great Scrap Metal Depression

I will not belabor the point, but the metals industry is resilient and always has been. Much like the stock market crash of 1929 reports of the industry’s demise was greatly exaggerated and always will be. With new tariffs on trade with large purchasers of our scrap metal, a booming economy and a fiesty election year rolling around, I have some advice. Do not worry about the short or long term prices for our scrap metal. If you need more money , work a little harder. Or even better, work on finding more profitable scrap metals such as copper versus you ferrous iron hauls. Spend less time driving (gas prices are a constant thorn) and more time separating scrap for bigger payoffs. Most broken down cars are worth more piece by piece. Lastly, don’t jump..nobody else is.