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Bunker foresaw at least a tenfold increase in the price of silver as a result of the plummeting real value of the dollar, so he and his brother began to buy up physical silver as well as future contracts. Instead of closing out contracts with cash settlements, a common procedure on the commodities market, the Hunts took delivery on silver. They then stockpiled this silver and used their large cash reserves to buy up even more futures.4

The billions in demand triggered the rise of silver to more than $50 per ounce.5 The silver bug siblings continued to take delivery and borrowed heavily to take out even more futures on silver once their immediate cash was all tied up.

Notably, $1 billion worth of silver purchases was bound to move the market, but the Hunts were able to amplify this jump by leveraging the family fortune many times over. The Hunt name was considered as good as gold where lending was concerned, and the Hunts were able to get capital at much lower rates than other speculators.

The Hunts also preached their gospel of silver as the true haven in the upcoming inflationary flood to wealthy investors throughout the world and pooled converts' funds to buy up more silver and futures contracts. Some of the speculators helping the Hunts included Saudi investors—a fact that would become important when the U.S. government started getting interested in the Hunts' activities.4

Andrew N. Kleit. "Modern Energy Market Manipulation," Page 41. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018.
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The U.S. government became concerned over what it saw as a clear attempt at manipulating the nation's silver reserves, and the fact that this corner involved the Middle East added some venom to its reaction: After all, the 1970s oil crisis was still fresh in the nation's mind. Federal commodities regulators introduced special rules to prevent any more long position contracts from being written or sold for silver futures.75

This move stopped the Hunts from increasing their positions by temporarily suspending the fundamental rules of the commodities market. With longs frozen and shorts free to pile in, the price of silver began to slide. Margin calls on the loans began to take a toll on the Hunts' reserves to the point where they were paying millions a day in calls, storage fees, and interest.6