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May 26, 2008, 11:51AM ET
Soros: Oil boom increasingly speculative



LONDON

Soaring oil prices are increasingly the result of speculation, financier George Soros said in an interview published Monday.

The billionaire investor said the money pouring into the oil market increasingly had the look of a bubble, but that it would not burst until both the United States and Britain were knocked into a recession.

"Speculation ... is increasingly affecting the price," Soros was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph. "The price has this parabolic shape that is characteristic of bubbles."

But the cost of oil -- which briefly reached new record highs of more than $135 a barrel in trading Thursday -- was unlikely to fall dramatically until the U.S. and Britain economies began contracting, the paper quoted Soros as saying.

Soros has frequently been a voice of gloom and doom as the U.S. economy slows amid a wrenching housing crisis and tightening credit. But the pessimism hasn't stopped his fund from making money.

According to Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine, the Quantum Endowment Fund -- which Soros no longer manages -- made $2.9 billion last year with returns of over 30 percent.

Soros has been promoting a new book, "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis and What It Means." He has urged regulators to move more aggressively to improve market oversight to curb risks from excessive reliance on debt for financial speculation.