Baltimore Sun- The price of Cadbury PLC’s Caramello candy bar is up 10 percent over the past 12 months, raising a sticky question: Are hedge funds to blame?
Soaring cocoa prices are driving up the cost of chocolate around the world. The chocolate industry points its finger at speculative buying by professional investors, especially hedge funds.
Hedge funds have been accused of many things over the years, including almost bankrupting countries (the 1997 Asian currency crisis), triggering a run on the pound ( George Soros in 1992), threatening the integrity of the U.S. financial system (Long-Term Capital Management in 1998) and fraud (Bayou Management LLC in 2005). This is their first fight with chocolatiers.
