The "spot" price of aluminum has bounced around 65 to 70 cents for several months. Who pays that? Do you have to buy a trainload at the Alcoa mill? Local distributors like Hadco and Alro want over double that for bar stock for orders in multiple $1000s.
How do you buy aluminum at the "spot" price?
Jun 04, 2009
3 Replies
I get it at the spot price. My son's company has a semi or two of metal come in every morning. They sell to their employees at cost.
Karl
I believe that the spot price relates to 20 tonnes of ingots delivered only to certain nominated cities.
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It is effectively (but not actually) the price Alcoa is paying for its semi processed raw material. The extra price you pay is to cover making it into a product and shipping it to you.
The commodities prices in the paper, when they printed them, used to have the conditions, like "ingots FOB Chicago", in the fine print. Since most people want rolled or extruded products, that costs more, along with transport. You pay distributors for the cost of having inventory, too. You can probably get a pretty good price for cast ingots at the plant, though.
Stan
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