THE LEGENDARY HUNT BROTHERS

When silver quoted at 50 USD (US Dollars) in January 1980, the atmosphere for precious metals was really euphoric. It was the Hunt Brothers (Nelson Bunker & William Herbert), who were the most famous bull market operators in those times, who invested a bigger part of their multi-billion USD fortune in the white metal. And it was already in the early 1970’s that the Hunt brothers started to build up gigantic physical positions in the silver sector.
In the sequel they expanded their stocks in stages, on the analogy of the increasing price for silver. During the final stage, they tried to keep the price for silver high, by buying up a large part of the current production on the options market. In the end, a state intervention caused the collapse of their silver price speculation. On January 21st 1980, COMEX (Commodity Exchange) announced, that new contracts on silver couldn’t be concluded any longer. This factual deactivation of the futures exchange was the main reason for the end of the biggest silver boom of all times.
On March 14th, 1980 the silver price sank on 21 USD per ounce.
Because of increasing interest rates, done by the chairman of the FED (Federal Reserve System), Paul Volcker, the Dollar became stronger and so increased in value. Now Nelson Bunker Hunt tried to win new business partners for further silver purchases, but he didn’t succeed.
Finally, the Hunt brothers didn’t have left enough liquidity to fulfill their additional cover obligation, so they sold silver worth a hundred million USD the next morning.
It became evident that it has not just been a one-sided manipulation by the Hunt brothers, but also, according to rumours, nine directors of the COMEX being involved with “short”- positions, and logically, earning on the crash as well.
The Hunt brothers declared private bankruptcy in 1980 and left it in 1989,being in debt amounting to 90 million USD. These debts had to be paid back within 15 years.
In August 1988, the Hunt brothers were convicted because of “conspiracy aiming at manipulation of the market”.

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