Word: forded
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...with a bang. Soon all steel-peddling haunts buzzed with reports that auto production schedules called for 1,000.000 1939 cars by year's end. At a ton of steel per car, Detroit would have to buy 1,000,000 tons. Buick had just bought 35,000 tons. Ford was shopping for 50,000 tons. For the steel industry the days of on & up were coming back...
...Ford, whose philosophy is based on low prices and big volume, took his time shopping for his 50,000 tons. For weeks he dangled the bait until big time steelmen forgot that the price of 1,000,000 tons was at stake, enough to keep U. S. continuous rolling mills busy for more than a month, while 50,000 tons add up to a couple of days' work.* By October 1, steelmen were in a competitive lather...
...Then Ford bought his 50,000 tons, at $4 a ton below what steelmen quickly realized had been the price, but was the price no more. There started a week's orgy of price cutting. Steel price quotations fell as rapidly as stock quotations on a Hitler-speech day. The independents (staying in the black) offered to lay steel down in Detroit for $8 a ton less than the U. S. Steel Corporation, and the U. S. Steel Corporation (going into the red) met the cut. Little Steel's Girdler and Big Steel's Stettinius traded punches...
Last week, this bit of history was memorable for Ford was again dangling an order before the trade, an order for only 5.000 tons, only an hour's run for the industry's continuous mills. But such was the state of the steel industry that the offer was demoralizing. Youngstown Sheet & Tube allegedly nibbled first, offering Ford a $2 a ton cut. He held out, won a reduction twice as big, added insult to injury by splitting the bone he was throwing seven different ways, so that no plant got more than a sniff of business...
...last October,-price cutting spread. Some steel prices dropped as much as $11 a ton or up to 20%. Characteristically, competing automen disputed Ford's claim for credit in securing the reduction. Meanwhile, large steel orders by the motormakers are probably two months off, for the auto companies have enough steel on hand to last until large scale production begins on 1940 models and want to be sure their big buying is done at the bottom, not on the way down. Aggressive National Steel Co., always up front among the price cutters, admitted that it didn't "know...