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"The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means" has been on the lips of global traders and investors in recent weeks. The financial guru has maintained a bleak outlook on how the global crisis will be played out.

Soros's opening sentence summarises his sense of urgency about the turmoil in the financial world. It reads: "We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s."

Soros, who has written nine previous books on politics and finance, frames his views in a provocative argument, combining practical experience and decades of philosophical analysis of market patterns.

He has also presented his outlook for the global economy this year.

In a recent television interview he said it would be foolish to believe that stock prices have bottomed in the current crisis.

On Tuesday, he said the boom in commodities is still in a "growth phase" after prices for oil, wheat and gold rose to record levels.

Crude oil and petrol climbed to record highs in New York as better-than-expected earnings results signalled a strengthening economy that may boost demand.

"You have a generalised commodity bubble due to commodities having become an asset class that institutions use to an increasing extent," Soros said yesterday at an event sponsored by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

Oil touched an all-time high of $119 in overnight trade and traders are not ruling out further spikes in the coming months.

Prices rose 6 per cent this week, the biggest weekly gain since February 2007. They are up 85 per cent from a year ago.

"On top of that you have specific factors that create the relative shortage of oil and, now, also food," Soros said.

Commodities are in their seventh year of gains, as the dollar plunged to an all-time low against the euro at 160 yesterday.

Rice has more than doubled in a year, while corn has advanced 68 per cent and wheat 92 per cent.

Investments in commodities rose by more than a fifth in the first quarter to US$400 billion (Bt12.5 trillion), Citigroup said earlier this month.

Commodities have outpaced stocks and bonds this year, spurring pension funds and other investors to increase holdings in wheat, gold, copper and tin, which climbed to a record high.