37. Bursting the Silver Bubble
The Hunts’ bubble market burst on March 27th, 1980, which came to be known as “Silver Thursday“. Prices collapsed, and the Hunts almost immediately lost over a billion dollars.
The Hunt family fortune survived, however, and the brothers pledged most of it as collateral for a rescue loan package. Unfortunately for them, the value of their family assets declined steadily throughout the 1980s. By 1985, their net wealth had dipped from over $5 billion just before Silver Thursday, to less than a billion. Then things got worse, especially for the genius behind the silver hoarding plan, Nelson Hunt.