A General Sag

Commodity market prices often forecast retail prices six to nine months in advance, since it usually takes that long for the rise or fall in wholesale prices to be passed on. Last week the commodity markets showed a distinct downtrend. Copper, at a 90-year peak of 46 a lb. only last March, slumped to 34-c-, was expected to drop still further. No. 2 copper scrap, also a March record-breaker when it hit 45.5-c-, fell 20-c- to the lowest price in some two years as copper production outpaced demand.

The sag was general from Chicago to Singapore, hit everything from oats to onions. Hide prices fell to a postwar low, cast-aluminum scrap fell one-half under last spring to 14-c- a lb., rubber futures fell as much as 80 to 120 points as Singapore traders trimmed inventories.

The most spectacular drop of all was in steel scrap (No. 1 heavy grade), which tumbled from a record high of $65.17 the week of Dec. 13 to $53.80 in just seven weeks. The worst fall since 1949, it brought a loss of as much as $12 a ton for some grades of scrap. But steel-scrap men were not panicked. They explained that the skyrocketing in scrap prices, caused by tremendous export and domestic orders, had brought out an unprecedented amount of scrap, flooding the market. (The state of New York had also helped: a new law requiring rigid examination of all cars more than four years old caused hundreds of jalopies to be junked.) Said Chicago Dealer Louis Izkovitz: "The drop looks drastic because prices had reached an all-time high. Actually, the market isn't a bad one at present in spite of the drop. Most of the people in the industry would be happy to have it level off at the present plateau."

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