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Just what the Hunts were up to, no one in the outside world yet knows. Bunker is garrulous about race horses but extremely secretive about business, and there are no published figures on his activities since public investors do not participate in them. Bunker once told reporters that "I am not a speculator. I am not a market squeezer. I am just an investor and holder in silver."
The prevailing theory is that Hunt was trying to corner the market. A corner is created when a speculator buys up virtually all the supply of a commodity or stock that is available for sale, and contracts to buy yet more. Other speculators who have contracted to sell the commodity to him but do not have any to deliver must either buy anything they can find at whatever outrageous prices may be asked or else settle in cash with the cornering speculator on any terms he may specify. Corners have often been attempted but seldom work, partly because the soaring price creates new supplies. The most famous corner was the one that Jay Gould and Jim Fisk achieved in the New York gold market in 1869 by bribing President Grant's Assistant Treasurer, Daniel Butterfield, to limit the supply of gold. Grant himself intervened to break the corner.
If a corner was Hunt's goal, it did not work. In January, commodity exchanges placed sharp restrictions on the speculative purchases of silver contracts on margin. That dried up the frenzied demand. At the same time, thousands of people tempted by the high prices began hauling family silver out of closets to be sold and melted down. Even thieves got into the game, and burglaries of household silver increased throughout the U.S. In late January the price broke, then spiraled down and down.
What happened next is still unclear, mostly because it is not known how much Hunt may have borrowed to buy his silver and how badly the borrowing may have strained even his resources. But last week stories spread that he was selling silver in Europe, and traders interpreted that as a signal that he was running out of cash. Then Bunker, Herbert and their associates offered to sell billions of dollars worth of bonds in Europe to be backed by a "substantial portion" of the estimated 200 million oz. of silver they hold. These bonds would pay a low rate of interest (estimated at 8%). One theory, advanced by Metals Dealer Andrew Racz, is that they were trying to raise money at low cost to invest in higher yielding (15%) U.S. Treasury bills, or even, as James Sinclair, another bullion broker, thinks, to buy more silver. But the prevailing belief was that Hunt, locked into a silver position that he could not sell out at any price he would accept, was in effect trying to turn his silver hoard into cash without actually selling it.