Well, welcome to the Grants podcast.

I'm Evan Lorenz deputy editor.

Our guest today is Mark Cajodas.

Mark is the former general partner of Rocker Partners slash Copper River.

Today he resides in Kotati, California, where he runs Alder Lang Farms and sells stock short

for his own personal account.

Mark, thank you for joining us.

Well, thanks for having me. Mark, how do you source and identify compelling short ideas?

Well, that's kind of a wide question. I probably in my mind, I probably have 300, maybe 400 companies bopping around.

I view myself sort of as a stalker. I see a lot of names. I hear a lot of stories.

And being early shorting stocks is just flat out wrong. So I try not to be early, but I watch a number of things and events transpire. And I tend to have a saying, I'm not interested in climbing the tree to hunt for the jaguar. I'm very interested in someone shooting the Jaguar out of the tree,

the Jaguar hitting the ground, and when it hits the ground, I'll take a knife and carve

the thing up. So I tend to wait for a change. I tend to wait for the Bull's thesis to move.

I tend to wait for management's, management of some of these suspect companies to

start mouthing off again shorts. So I probably have about eight things I look for, but unless the

timing is right and I think I can jump them and carve someone up, I really have no interest in shorting a name.

You've told me in the past that you hold few, if any, longs.

How do you manage risk in your portfolio, especially now in an age of Zerp and QE,

when the market levitates stocks almost regardless of fundamentals?

Well, first of all, to me, owning longs is boring, and I have problems sleeping at night

owning stocks.

So I'm wired very differently than most.

...