Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management blames high prices on index speculators
Two months ago, circumspect hedge fund manager Michael Masters penned an e-mail to friends in which he decried the pernicious effect that high commodity prices, particularly oil, were having on the lives of ordinary Americans. More importantly, he offered a detailed analysis of the speculation by institutional investors that was contributing to it.
Now, Masters, who since 1995 has quietly been running Masters Capital Management, a $277 million long/short equity hedge fund out of the Virgin Islands, has testified before a Senate subcommittee and made it onto the CBS evening news by crystallizing into plain English what many Americans had only suspected: that Wall Street is responsible for the pain they're feeling at the pump and in the grocery store.
Michael Masters
Masters' original e-mail made its way to Washington, where it landed in the office...