2 ms·

If you want to manipulate a market that big you’d better have very deep pockets or be willing to take a very large loss. It’s easy to drive up the price of some

If you want to manipulate a market that big you’d better have very deep pockets or be willing to take a very large loss. It’s easy to drive up the price of something, buy lots of it. It’s easy to drop the price of something, sell down your stockpile. The only way to make money by buying lots of something and then selling loads of it later is by successfully predicting that future demand will be higher than current demand.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Or buy most of crop that is the right size for market demand. Will people pay 5p more for a chocolate bar instead of going without, for sure. So, buy all the chocolate. If there's no one else to buy from and you have no morals then you've won. I think someone did this with a large portion (several tenths) of the [European?] cocoa bean supply.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  That’s really, really difficult. You’re relying on no one else figuring out what you’re doing and exploiting that knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States in the silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the Hunt brothers' attempt at cornering the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges. Porsche makes more VW stock available to desperate short-sellers https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw-volkswagen-short-selling https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw-volkswag...
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It seems that the Hunts were nobbled, the changes to the rules they were trading under, the federal reserve instructing banks not to lend them money, etc.? http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html is a useful synopsis.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Or buy most of crop that is the right size for market demand. Will people pay 5p more for a chocolate bar instead of going without, for sure. So, buy all the chocolate. If there's no one else to buy from and you have no morals then you've won. I think someone did this with a large portion (several tenths) of the [European?] cocoa bean supply.

barry-cotter 8y ago
That’s really, really difficult. You’re relying on no one else figuring out what you’re doing and exploiting that knowledge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States in the silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the Hunt brothers' attempt at cornering the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges. Porsche makes more VW stock available to desperate short-sellers https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw-volkswagen-short-selling https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/29/vw-volkswag...
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  It seems that the Hunts were nobbled, the changes to the rules they were trading under, the federal reserve instructing banks not to lend them money, etc.? http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html http://web.pdx.edu/~jjackson/HuntSilver.html is a useful synopsis.