Before you complain, let me explain. There are two words in large type on the front cover of this month's edition. The one that counts is bonds . The other is a play on words—using a term that many in the scrap industry dislike—but the word that counts here is play .

With No. 1 bundles selling at $321.30 a gross ton in Chicago in October, ferrous scrap doesn't qualify in anybody's book as something to drag out to the curb and hope someone will haul away. After years of one expert after another promoting the "elasticity" theory of...