The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[jbog]

I have a hunch that jbog will say this is BS.

Just the contrary, this is the way all the specialty metals are priced.

In the high end metals a mill puts out a semi-annual price for each type of metal (304, 304-L, 316 etc). This price is per pound and includes the price for producing it and the commodity components, their labor, energy, and all other operating costs plus their profits.

Each week I get a surcharge sheet which would include any deviation in the costs of the variable commodities. In the stainless world that would be for chromium, nickel, molybdenum and energy. If the nickel ingredient was $.05 per Lb when the initial price was derived and now is $.10 there would be a 5 cent surcharge that week. Everything changes except for the original semi-annual price.

Cliff has been a joke with their public price announcements. Recently, maybe with the last month they announced they had a minimum price of $900. Over the last two weeks I was buying in the range of $7.90 to $8.10. I'm sure they charged the metal center $900.......... less 25-30%