SLV: Silver Thursday
From en.wikipedia.org
Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, 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.
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Aftermath
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. However, the value of their assets (mainly holdings in oil, sugar, and real estate) declined steadily during the 1980s, and their estimated net wealth declined from $5 billion in 1980 to less than $1 billion in 1988.[7] By 1982, the London Silver Fix had collapsed by 90% to $4.90 per troy ounce.[8]
In 1988, the brothers were found responsible for civil cases of conspiracy to corner the market in silver. They were ordered to pay $134 million in compensation to a Peruvian mineral company that had lost money as a result of their actions. This forced the brothers to declare bankruptcy, in one of the biggest such filings in Texas history.[9]
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