Nickel prices have been drifting up. Prices on metals will be rising as the surcharges catch up with the 3 month average. The last low point was just before April 2009, which means we are just seeing the surcharges creeping up. If it holds at about $8/lb, the surcharge won't settle out until about mid/late August. See the recent graph. Where does the 8 dollars a pound come from? It seems to be a comfortable number for mines, producers and consumers. The last 5 years shows a steady pattern (excluding the painful spike we just got through that ended about November 2008), if you go back further than 5 years it is more evident.
What does this mean to you? Well, if you are going to need materials in the next 2-3 months, it would be wise to start your stock purchases soon - before the surcharges rise too much. If you are expecting materials to arrive in the next 2-3 months, I would be expecting the costs to be going up if you bought with RMS (Raw Material Surcharge) at time of shipment.
Would you like a firm fixed price? Well, it depends on when it is going to arrive. Again, look at the graphs, and note the LME stock available. At the time of this writing, the stock is rising in 30 days. In normal supply & demand, this would indicate the index price should go lower at some point. When will it go lower again? Well, you guess is as good as mine.