2026 Scrap Metal Price Outlook
Last week we highlighted the slight optimism in the scrap steel market, so now we turn our attention to the non-ferrous metals, most prominently scrap copper, brass, aluminum and stainless steel.
First let’s get the bad news out of the way right up front. 2025 showed almost no momentum or movement for stainless steel and hopes aren’t high for 2026. According to Metal Exchange Direct nickel (the base element that drives many of the stainless alloys) started the year at $6.94 per pound and today sits right at $6.86 per pound. In other words not much movement at all. The scrap price has been dragging all year for stainless and mill demand is not strong with the outlook not very promising. Higher nickel alloys like 330 stainless steel and 310 stainless with 25-35% nickel content have done a bit better but they also still seem to be in the doldrums.
Aluminum is an interesting case and 2025 has been a strong year for aluminum. Trading on the LME has jumped from $1.16 per pound at the beginning of the year to now at $1.29 per pound today. The Midwest premium (cost to get the metal to the midwestern portion of the US) has skyrocketed this year as well. On the flip side plenty of mills have all the metal they need and appointments for deliveries are not very easy to get. Wall Street has taken notice–in fact the consensus position is that aluminum has some upside early in 2026 but they are expecting a late year fade for the metal as inventories climb. This view is most prominently held by Goldman Sachs who is forecasting an extra 1 million metric ton surplus into the market at the end of 2026 and into early 2027! The continued electricity revolution may take some of this surplus, at least that’s the position of the bulls and if that does happen we could see aluminum staying in this very strong position through 2026.
The caveat here is that this strong case for aluminum is for primary aluminum. The alloys this relates to for most scrappers include 5052, 6063 and 6061, 356 car rims, EC wire and aluminum extrusion, which have all seen healthy increases in 2025! Other secondary items like aluminum siding, UBCs (aluminum cans), cast aluminum, sheet aluminum and other lower grade aluminum items have not had a huge uptick and have been fairly flat throughout all of these increase. We see nothing that would change our view on a less than stellar 2026 for these metals.
Now on to the headline grabber, copper! This has been the breakout year for copper. We started the year at $3.98 on the LME and $4.02 on comex. Copper being a headliner on the tariff front and the back and forth on how aggressive and what types of copper that fell under the restrictions allowed for a huge disparity between COMEX and the LME allowing for the shift of copper to the US ahead of each reported action. Today copper sits at $5.41 on LME and $5.54 on COMEX March 2026. This spread between LME and Comex is not as wide as it had been through the year but still much wider than they typical few cents it was at the start of 2026 even.
Of all of the metals copper seems the most greenlight for growth in 2026, with universal mention of the data center, grid and electrification initiatives out there that are moving fast. At the same time while many governments recognize the need to mine more copper, production capacity is years away with the average mine restart often taking more than ten years to jump start.
Copper more than other metals also is very Fed sensitive and even the few projected 2026 rate cuts will support growth for the metal. Jerome Powell’s transition out of the Fed Chair seat will also provide President Trump the opportunity to influence the selection of the next chair. This should really put a floor on copper pricing and also help support the alternative to fiat currency that gold, silver and to a lesser extent copper can be a proxy for.
So, despite copper already being at such high levels we feel that 2026 could see even greater heights for copper, brass, insulated copper wire, copper aluminum radiators, electric motors and all of the copper scrap items that are based on this trade.
In summary, aluminum and copper are hot, steel is getting there and stainless is cold. Kind of where we expect 2026 to be at this point. Stay tuned to our prices page for more information!
