The Silver Squeeze

"The Silver Squeeze – How two oil billionaires tried to buy all the silver in the world" tells the incredible story of Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt. In the late 1970s, these Texas oil tycoons feared inflation and the collapse of the dollar. Their solution? Buy physical silver. A lot of it. Financial writer Nelson Paul chronicles their audacious plan. At their peak, the brothers controlled over one-third of the world's private silver supply. They drove the price from $6 to $50 an ounce. But on "Silver Thursday" (March 27, 1980), the government changed the trading rules, the price collapsed, and the Hunts lost over a billion dollars in a single day. "The Silver Squeeze" is a cautionary tale about leverage and hubris. It shows what happens when individuals try to corner a global market and how the financial establishment will always change the rules to protect itself.