Grant Williams, Bill Fleckenstein, and Marc Cohodes discuss short selling and the wild gyrations in equity markets in recent days
Grant invites two accomplished shortsellers, Marc Cohodes and Bill Fleckenstein to discuss the wild gyrations in equity markets in recent days as a coordinated move by retail investors to attack 'shortsellers' and inflict pain upon Wall Street proves to be, in some ways at least, a roaring success.
There are, however, nuances to this story which are perhaps not broadly understood and are in need of a little illumination - most notably, the difference between 'shortsellers' and 'highly leveraged hedge fund shorts'.
Bill, Marc and Grant discuss the important differences between the two, the events that have transpired and the potential path from here as well as some thoughts on why and how the system is broken, where the anger of retail investors ought to perhaps more accurately be directed and why this growing revolution may be an important turning point...
Marc Cohodes is regarded as one of the world's most successful short-sellers. Before retiring, Cohodes previously ran one of the largest hedge funds in the world, Copper River Partners. They managed over $1.5 billion in assets, and made a fortune betting against companies whose books and practices didn't quite make sense. In 2008 Marc quit the financial game after a correct bet against Lehman resulted in a complication between Copper River and Goldman Sachs, which led to the fund's demise. Since then he's retired from his trade desk, and runs Alder Lanes, a swanky chicken farm in Sonoma County, California. Marc has since come out of his self-imposed short selling retirement after noticing several shorting opportunities too good to pass up.
Grant Williams is the portfolio manager of the Vulpes Precious Metals Fund and strategy advisor to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore. Grant has 28 years of experience in finance on the Asian, Australian, European and US markets and has held senior positions at several international investment houses, including Robert Fleming, UBS and Credit Suisse. Since 2009, he has also been writing the popular investment newsletter Things That Make You Go Hmmm...
Bill Fleckenstein is the President of Fleckenstein Capital and writes a popular column 'Contrarian Chronicles' for MSN Money as well as the daily Market Rap column for his website: Fleckenstein Capital. Bill has appeared at one time or another in virtually all financial media including Bloomberg, CNBC, The New York Times, MSN, Marketwatch, Barron's and more. Bill is a highly sought after speaker, successful author of Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve