The story of the Hunt Brothers

Nelson Bunker Hunt died today at the age of 88. He was a prolific trader and businessman who became world famous when he tried to corner the silver market along with his brother.

They began buying silver at $1.50 an ounce and controlled between 30-50% of the world’s supply at one point and drove the price up to nearly $50/ounce.

It all came to a juddering halt in the first three months of 1980. Regulators suspended trading in silver, then set much lower limits on trades, leading to mounting margin calls on the brothers.

On March 27, known as “Silver Thursday,” the price of silver dropped by half to close at $10.50 an ounce. Hunt staved off filing for bankruptcy until 1988 by selling other assets, including, eventually, much of the horse-breeding interests, and managed to preserve the family trusts inherited from HL.

He was banned from trading commodities in 1989.

Silver long term chart with the Hunt spike

Silver long term chart with the Hunt spike

You need to have a lot of guts to try to corner a market.

Along with the squeeze in Volkswagen in 2008, it was one of the great trades of all time.

Nelson Bunker Hunt dead

Nelson Bunker Hunt: RIP to one of the craziest traders of all time