Metal mania. (economists Christopher Gilbert and Celso Brunetti argue that greater interest in copper by investment funds has not made metal prices more volatile)(Brief Article)

Economist (US), The, June, 1996

WHEN the price of anything goes haywire these days, speculators usually get the blame. In recent years, large investment funds have been accused of making the prices of metals more volatile than they were. A bout of recent chaos in the copper market, as a result of Sumitomo's activities, would seem at first sight to provide more evidence to support this theory.

Yasuo Hamanaka, Sumitomo's chief copper trader, had long been suspected of seeking to prop up the copper price. Then, earlier this month, various hedge funds forced it into a precipitous fall. Yet although investment funds have indeed taken a greater interest in metals in recent years, a study due to be published later this year in Resources Policy, an academic journal, concludes that prices have not...

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