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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

Last March, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou blamed "unprincipled speculators" for exacerbating his country's crisis, saying that currency traders around the world were threatening to trigger a new global financial meltdown, according to a Bloomberg report, which added that people like Andrew Law, CIO of the $9bn hedge fund firm Caxton Associates would have been one of these people.

Currency traders make money betting on the movements of one currency against another. Law has been shorting the euro and longing all other currencies since the beginning of the year, as did quite a few other hedge funds. The Greek crisis (problems started appearing in December-09 with a downgraded credit rating), the subsequent European Union bailout and the resulting stress on the euro currency coincided in the timeline with the bearish bets on the euro. It was widely speculated in the media that the bearish attack, that started around February, had stem from an 'idea dinner' held in New York and attended by hedge fund heavyweights from the likes of Soros and SAC.

And it looks like a lot of hedge funds are set to continue trading currencies in the near future, according to a survey from Hedge F......................

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