The Long (and Short) of it: A Cynic's Take on Markets & Investing | Jim Chanos

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Business, Government

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2020

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 164 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with legendary short-seller Jim Chanos, founder of Kynikos Associates, about the art and science of selling short.

What is short-selling? What does it mean to sell something short? How does one learn to do it successfully? These are just some of the questions that Demetri and Jim explore in their two-hour-long conversation on markets, politics, and life. Demetri asks Jim for his philosophy on investing and why value-oriented allocators have had a difficult time profiting during the later stages of this bull market. A vocal critic of corporate excess and malfeasance, Chanos also offers his view on what a Biden administration will mean for financial regulation, capital markets, equity valuations, and the broader economy. The two also dissect the business models and prospects of companies like Tesla and Uber and consider the value proposition of Bitcoin amid its extraordinary rise in recent weeks. They end with a conversation about history and what we might come to expect from the future by looking into the past.

This is yet another excellent, engaging, and profoundly eye-opening conversation in a series of such discussions that we have released in recent weeks. We hope you enjoy it!

You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week's episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:

Write us a review on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to our mailing list through the Hidden Forces Website

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://patreon.com/hiddenforces

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Episode Recorded on 11/17/2020

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Before we begin today's episode, it's important to remember that nothing we say on this
0:05.2	podcast can or should be viewed as financial advice. All opinions expressed by me and my guests are solely our own opinions and should not
0:15.1	be relied upon as the basis for financial decisions. If you want more information
0:20.2	about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming,
0:24.6	visit our website at hiddenforces.io and subscribe to our free email list.
0:31.0	If you listen to the show on your Apple Podcast app, take a moment to write us a review.
0:36.8	Each review helps more people find the show and join our amazing community.
0:42.2	And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. What's up everybody? My guest on this episode of Hidden Forces is Jim Chinos,
1:09.5	founder and managing partner of Kinnikos Associates, the world's largest exclusive
1:16.3	short-selling investment firm. Jim is a legend in the investment space,
1:21.9	having identified and sold short the shares of numerous well-known
1:26.4	corporate financial disasters of the last 40 years.
1:30.3	Companies like Baldwin United, Commodore International, Conesco, Tyco, and most famously Enron,
1:36.7	which Barron's dubbed at the time the market call of the decade, if not the past 50 years.
1:44.3	And yet, in the two decades since the arrests of key executives at Enron, Tyco, WorldCom,
1:50.8	and a host of other companies, we've seen very little in the way of white-collar prosecutions
1:55.9	and investigations of large-scale corporate fraud. Indeed, prosecutors have seemed content to simply charge the companies involved
2:04.0	while letting their executives off the hook.
2:07.0	Why is that?
2:09.0	Have America's executives suddenly become more law-abiding
2:12.0	or have prosecutors become more reticent?
2:15.2	Are they afraid of losing cases?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Demetri Kofinas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Demetri Kofinas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.