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This story begins in Texas, USA. There, two things are abundant: oil and the daring cowboy spirit to gamble big. The Hunter brothers—Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt—happen to embody both.

Their father, H.L. Hunt, was a legendary figure who made his fortune through poker and eventually built a vast oil empire. He left his sons not only enormous wealth but also a deep distrust of government-issued currency. With this inherited suspicion, combined with their innate gambling nature, the brothers set their sights on an ancient metal—silver—in the early 1970s.

Prologue: Two "Smart Guys" and Their Calculations

At that time, silver was trading at around $1.50 per ounce. To the Hunt brothers, this was practically a gift. They believed the dollar would depreciate due to inflation, and silver—used as money for centuries—was the real hard currency.

Their plan was simple and aggressive: since they believed silver was valuable, they would buy it all.

Thus began a rare "hoarding" operation in history. The brothers mobilized all their family resources and connections, secretly accumulating silver through a network of related companies and offshore accounts worldwide. They didn't just buy futures contracts; more importantly, they demanded physical delivery, transporting tons of real silver into warehouses in New York, Switzerland, and other locations.

How big was their appetite? At their peak, they controlled over 50% of the deliverable silver inventory globally, with enough silver to meet more than a year's industrial demand worldwide. In today's terms, they aimed to create a "supply shortage" in the silver market with a single click.

Climax: A Crazy "Silver Storm"

Controlling the physical market meant squeezing the market from the neck. Starting in 1979, the Hunt brothers launched a massive attack on the futures market, buying aggressively and driving prices up. The market's response was immediate:

· Price Rocket: Silver soared from $6 per ounce in August 1979 to $35.52 in February 1980 (approaching a record high of nearly $50), nearly a 500% increase in six months.
· The Short Squeeze: All market participants betting against silver (short sellers) were pushed to the brink. If you wanted to deliver silver according to your futures contract, sorry—physical silver was stored in the Hunt brothers' warehouses, making it impossible to buy. All you could do was watch the price hit new highs daily, with losses mounting infinitely. This tactic is called a "short squeeze," and the Hunt brothers played it to the extreme.

Suddenly, speculators worldwide were fired up, pouring in funds chasing the trend, turning the silver market into the world's biggest casino. The Hunt brothers' paper wealth skyrocketed, as if they had forged an invincible financial empire with silver.

Collapse: When Rules Suddenly Changed

However, they forgot one thing: there are always market makers.

The Hunt brothers' tactics essentially challenged the entire financial system's rules. The New York Mercantile Exchange (COMEX) and regulators quickly realized the market had become severely distorted, with liquidity drying up.

The market makers struck back. Starting in January 1980, the exchange repeatedly issued "kill shots":

1. Significantly increased margin requirements: what once could be moved with minimal margin now required nearly 100% cash.
2. Strictly limited new positions: forbidding the establishment of new silver futures longs.
3. Forced liquidation: demanding a drastic reduction of existing positions.

This was like pulling the plug on the leverage and oxygen the Hunt brothers relied on. Their operations, built on massive borrowing, faced margin calls in the billions, with a flood of notices demanding additional collateral.

On March 27, 1980, the infamous "Silver Thursday" arrived. Silver prices plummeted like an avalanche, crashing sharply in a single day, losing over 60% from the peak within a month. The Hunt brothers' financial chain was completely broken, and they were forced to liquidate.

It is reported that Herbert Hunt told regulators over the phone, "I am bankrupt." (I'm busted.)

Final: Empire Collapses, a Cautionary Tale

When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. The once-wealthy Hunt brothers were forced to sell assets—horses, coins, land, even lawnmowers—to pay debts. By the late 1980s, both brothers declared personal bankruptcy, faced hefty fines for market manipulation, and were banned from trading commodities futures again.

A high-stakes gamble to "monopolize the world" ended in ruin—bankrupt gamblers, disgraced and broken. The story of the Hunt brothers became a classic case in Wall Street textbooks about greed, leverage dangers, and the inevitable failure of market manipulation.

To conclude with their own words: Herbert Hunt once bitterly defended himself, saying, "I felt like a woman whose purse was stolen, but I was accused of indecency because my clothes were torn." However, the verdict of history is clear: when you try to snatch the entire market’s purse, you must be prepared to face the system’s counterattack.