Billionaire investor George Soros will warn U.S. lawmakers Tuesday that a crash similar to the one in 1987 was not to be excluded, as "a bubble in the making" is under way in oil and other commodities, the Financial Times reported on its Web site.
Rising oil prices are due to a number of fundamental changes and factors in the market, but the relatively recent ability of investment institutions to invest in the futures market through index funds is exaggerating price rises, Soros is expected to say when he speaks in front of the Senate's Commerce Committee at 10 am New York time.
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| George Soros |
"I find commodity index buying eerily reminiscent of a similar craze for portfolio insurance which led to the stock market crash of 1987," Soros will say, according to a draft text seen by the FT.
"In both cases, the institutions are piling in on one side of the market and they have sufficient weight to unbalance it. If the trend were reversed and the institutions as a group headed for the exit as they did in 1987 there would be a crash," the draft remarks said.
The comments by Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, a $17bn hedge fund, are likely to fuel a debate about the role of speculators -- including hedge funds, pension funds and other institutional investors -- in the rising costs of energy and food, the FT said. The fund declined to comment on its specific market positions.
Commodity indexes are not a legitimate asset class for institutional investors, and commodity index investing should be discouraged, Soros is expected to say, but that a crash in the oil market is "not imminent"."When the idea was first promoted, there was a rationale for it ... But the field got crowded and that profit opportunity disappeared," his prepared remarks say, according to the FT.
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