This is certainly the magic question! As many of you are aware, the metal markets have been extremely volatile over the last few months. Unfortunately there is no clear-cut answer, but Schupan Aluminum can provide some industry opinions.
Metal Center News recently published an Article entitled "Down Year for Optimism". (January 2008 edition)
This was an article that polled its readers, along with top executives from
Metal Service Centers around the world, to gauge their expectations for the
coming year. The following was their findings:
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• 44% predicted an increase in aluminum pricing.
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• 35% predicted aluminum pricing to remain unchanged.
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• 22% predicted a decrease in aluminum pricing.
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"Averaging the responses, Metal Center News forecasts that aluminum prices will increase by 2.2% in 2008."
Since this article was published, the London Metal Exchange (LME) has gone from 2,365 per metric ton on January 2, 2008 to 3,171 per metric ton on March 6, 2008 which is an all time high.
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• 68% predicted steel prices to increase.
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• 20% predicted steel prices to remain unchanged.
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• The remaining 12% expected prices to decline.
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"Averaging the responses, Metals Center News forecasts that steel prices will increase 4.4% in 2008."
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• 75% predicted the price of red metals to remain flat or decline.
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• 28% predicted the price of red metals to decline.
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"Averaging the responses, Metal Center News forecasts Copper prices will rise by 2.7% in 2008."
As you can see there is quite a wide range of opinions. The participants in this article are in top levels of management within Metal Service Centers and the manufacturing industry. As a rule, these individuals generally have a good grasp of industry trends.
