Source: Financial Times, 30th August 2011

A Washington hearing was rapt last week as a man lectured on commodities markets. Money pouring in from investors had precipitated the "financialisation" of the sector. "Flows in these markets are having major effects on prices," he said. "That's the takeaway."

But the speaker was not a populist senator or policy gadfly. He was Kenneth Singleton, a winner of econometrics awards and distinguished professor at Stanford University, presenting a paper on oil’s 2008 boom and bust.