[steve50]

Several years back the Hunt brothers were charged trying to fix it I think. They had it up to $8/oz if I remember correctly. They would have made an absolute fortune if it worked. Not sure what the penalty was.

[Howlin]

Did I read somewhere on here this morning that Citicorp is heavy into gold, or am I mixing up my threads?

[hchutch]

They did time for that effort?

How did they get foiled?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

No, they had it up to over $40.00 per ounce.

[Poohbah]

The penalty was that they lost their shirts. Some big investment houses that backed their play managed to lose money (the total was in the billions of dollars).

[Axenolith]

Several years back the Hunt brothers were charged trying to fix it I think. They had it up to $8/oz if I remember correctly. They would have made an absolute fortune if it worked. Not sure what the penalty was.

It was back around 1981. They drove the price of silver up to around $50.00\ounce. I had a coin collection that was pushing $25,000 and I was only 16 (Whoops, I'm dated...).

[Lightnin]

Try $50+ per oz.

[rollin]

They changed the rules in order that the boys in the pits would not go broke.

So the Hunt's lost a fortune.

[teeman8r]

the penalty was that they had to buy gold...

[BuckeyeForever]

The Hunt brothers were amateurs to the Dukes, who tried to corner the orange juice futures market back in the 1980's. Mortimer and Randolph Duke tried to use inside information purchased illegally by one of their henchman. Fortunately, the plot was foiled because one of their disgruntled former employees, Louis Winthorpe III, was clued in on the scheme by Billy Ray, a street bum-turned-trader working for the Dukes in an experimental intern-type program. Ray and Winthorpe got together and masterminded an elaborate way to thwart the Dukes, leaving them penniless.