The scrap metal market continues to even out as the national average scrap metal price is up by less than one percent from the September report. Even though the market seems to be fairly flat now compared to last year at this time the average price for crushed autobodies is up 21%. This is a big swing from the last three months where we saw the scrap metal market under perform compared to 2016. The upturn of year to date growth should continue as Q4 in 2016 fell by over 25%.
Though overall the national scrap metal price is up less than one percent there was slight growth in four of five zones. We can see on the zone map that Zones 1 through 4 raised slightly. We expected the recent natural disasters to have more of an effect on Zone 3 this month but even with the influx of steel hitting Houston scrapyards the region has only increased 1%. Zone 5 also fell another 3% after dropping 7.5% last month. We can potentially see more growth in the upcoming months as scrappers continue to evaluate their capacity filled lots after getting back on their feet.
