The cocoa market has spurred the appetite of the 'sharks'. An investor bought the chocolate in July that Europe consumes in a year and inflating the price of this raw material. The bubble cocoa is the latest pastime for speculators.
July 16. London Futures Exchange (LIFFE). Purchase order of 241,000 tons of cocoa beans. The cost of the operation -720 000 000 euros, dismisses any chocolate industry giant. The move appears signed by a hedge fund .... Soon skip a name, two: Armajaro Holdings and Anthony Ward, a hedge fund and his British falcon front.
It all fits. Anthony Ward, president of Armajaro Holdings, is an old acquaintance of the City: the speculator spectacular operations. A reputation earned from that in 2002 bought 204,000 tons of cocoa and pocketed in a row 40 million pounds. The strategy of its operation in July is the same corner the cocoa market and wait to line up the price. At the same trading day, Ward and got the cocoa rising by 0.7%, reaching its highest price since 1977.
The clear beads and chocolate thick. The chocolate is more 'hot' as ever. Aside from the cleverness of this old fox of British finance, the fact is that cocoa is an emergent product. In the last three years, its price has doubled. To think that this is a return to antiquity, when the chocolate worked as currency among the people because of their high consideration.
The humble cocoa competed since the crisis began with the gold or platinum as a safe haven. On Christmas Eve 2008, the result quoted at its highest level in the last 23 years and became the most lucrative commodity the year, with an increase in the stock market 70%. The chocolate has undoubtedly become a favorite investment of speculators but why?
Like oil, cocoa is in very few countries in less than a dozen spread across Africa, Latin America and Asia, which account for 90% of world production. Something that translates into a market where few sellers and attend no more buyers, as the chocolate business pie is shared globally a handful of firms (Nestlé, Kfraft, Cadbury, Ferrero ...). And these ingredients are necessary for the price of cocoa is subjected to high pressure as a function of the evolution of supply and demand for the product.
Cacao 'bubbly'. Still, the cocoa bubble would be impossible without the speculators in the futures market are betting several years-and successful-that cocoa production will fall short of demand in each year. Some tensions bullish on the price of this fruit that triggered the Chocolate War, operations or attempts to focus on food industry as a sample button. Maneuvers to defend themselves in the market that have reported zero benefits to growers of cocoa pods.
And some doubt that it does in the case of Anthony Ward. The success of his latest 'hit' will depend on whether the expected increase in global demand for chocolate out of the crisis coincides with impoverished cocoa harvests, curtailed by bad weather or the dreaded pests affecting cocoa trees ... In that case, Anthony Ward would be eligible as an active buyer of options on the futures market to sell their product at a price almost to the letter. And win the game.
It would have been accomplished and the "conspiracy chocolate," others believe impossible because "all reports point to a recovery of the plantations of the Ivory Coast", as indicated by the President of the International Cocoa Merchants, Laurent Pipitone. If so, Anthony Ward, Willy Wonka of finance, seek ways to offset the losses with a new operation by manipulating prices in the food market, where these sharks act with impunity even after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, which has not served time for governments to decide to throw a harpoon neutralizing against these voracious sharks.
Source: http://es.biz.yahoo.com/100804/193/6d4pp.html
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