Nelson bunker hunt wikipedia biography

Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, , following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt , William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt collectively known as the Hunt Brothers to corner the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.

The brothers were estimated to hold one-third of the entire world supply of silver not held by governments. The situation for other prospective purchasers of silver was so dire that on March 26, , the jeweller Tiffany's took out an ad in The New York Times , condemning the Hunt brothers and stating "We think it is unconscionable for anyone to hoard several billion, yes billion, dollars' worth of silver and thus drive the price up so high that others must pay artificially high prices for articles made of silver".

Bunker hunt net worth at death

On January 7, , in response to the Hunts' accumulation, the exchange rules regarding leverage were changed; COMEX adopted "Silver Rule 7", which placed heavy restrictions on the purchase of commodities on margin. The Hunt brothers had invested heavily in futures contracts through several brokers, including the brokerage firm Bache Halsey Stuart Shields , later Prudential-Bache Securities and Prudential Securities.

Many government officials feared that if the Hunts were unable to meet their debts, some large Wall Street brokerage firms and banks might collapse. The U. Securities and Exchange Commission SEC later launched an investigation into the Hunt brothers, who had failed to disclose that they in fact held a 6. This day marked the end of a large stock market correction that year.

The Hunts lost over a billion dollars through this incident, but the family fortunes survived. They pledged most of their assets, including their stake in Placid Oil, as collateral for the rescue loan package they obtained. In , the brothers were found responsible for civil charges of conspiracy to corner the market in silver. This forced the brothers to declare bankruptcy, in one of the biggest such filings in Texas history.

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