The Wall Street Journal ran an article in early July that touched off a firestorm of contention, especially among folks that would normally treat anything in the WSJ as gospel. The article was a simple analysis of the change in the number of futures market speculators versus non-speculators. The conclusion was that in 2000, 37% of traders were speculators, and 63% were non-speculators (physical commodity hedgers). By 2008, speculators comprised 71% of the market. They used the US's CFTC data, but with a reclassification of the number of swaps traders, as per a congressional subcommittee.
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