Oh man, what an awesome shorting opportunity that was
If you control the market , you can also control the fall
by shorting yourself and making more money.
The COMEX, where the bulk of US silver futures were traded in 1980, had previously declared trading, as of Wednesday, to be for "liquidation only". This means (meant) that existing positions, long or short, could be freely closed when and as desired, BUT NO NEW POSITIONS OF ANY TYPE COULD BE ESTABLISHED. Want to buy some silver futures? Tough; the exchange wouldn't allow it. Want to sell some short? Tough; same answer.
Not nice? Nope, but the exchange was under the gun bigtime. Had they not done this, there would have been -- very likely -- insufficient stocks to settle the vastly expanding number of open contracts. MORE than likely, there would in short order have been NO EXCHANGE; it would have gone out of business after such a huge default.
Don't believe it? Well, all you have to do is look at the COMEX exchanges own figures of open interest (the number of existing contracts now in effect at the end of trading each day) from 2 January through the end of the month. If you don't have them, you can get them -- likely free -- from a quote service. In extremis, I have them and can send them to you.
Your comment is a classic case of what Paul Harvey used to broadcast the sequent as "The Rest of the Story". Nice pipe dream, of course, but not doable in the real world. As I recall, the COMEX exchange cancelled the "liquidation only" order after silver had dropped about $23/oz., but I will freely admit that, after 35 years or so, my memory may be in error. At any rate, silver prices had fallen a hell of a lot before "normal" trading was restored.
FReegards to you!