Factory bundles decline $25/T for November

Oct 31, 2007 | 11:56 AM | Michael Marley

Winning offers for the auto industry's factory bundles are down an average of $25 a long ton from last month, industry source said, about $10 a ton lower than many anticipated prior to the sale.

That decline was the steepest for this bellwether grade in the past six months and took the AMM Factory Bundles Index down to $283 a ton for November, a steep slide compared with the sideways step they took in October. The largest price plunge thus far this year was a $77 a ton in May, which took the index to $265 a ton from $342 in April.

The sales included about 35,000 tons of factory bundles from four Chrysler Group stamping plants and a Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. plant. As in past months, Ford Motor Co. reportedly offered no bundles from its Chicago-area stamping plant, although Ford executives could not be reached to confirm that. Ford sells the first 10,000 tons of the bundles from that stamping plant to a Midwest flat-rolled mini-mill each month and has not exceeded that level for the past year. That plant normally generated 15,000 tons of bundles per month.....