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I'm still at a complete loss what benefits such speculators provide. They hoard material, cause price increase, possibly con insurance by organizing their own theft or at the very least benefiting from it by getting an early return on cobalt via the insurance payout without affecting the market by selling it.

It seems to happen to any commodity that is scarce enough to be controlled by a few speculators.

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If you're good, you'd buy low and sell high (otherwise you'll go bankrupt), effectively smoothing the market.

An other way to look at it is arbitrage: instead of moving the commodities in space, you move the in time.

Monopolists can always destroy value. That's pretty independent of the (overwhelming recognized) value of commodity speculation.

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