The (Next) Big Short: Current Investments of Michael Burry and Steve Eisman
January 16th, 2012 | Posted by Global Investors
I’ve read parts of The Big Short by Michael Lewis before, but finally re-read the entire thing over the weekend. If you are unfamiliar with this bestseller, it tells the story of the housing bubble through the viewpoint of investors who saw the crisis coming and bet big money on the collapse of subprime mortgages. Lewis portrays these guys as almost heroes, courageous individuals from smaller hedge funds that went against the commonly-held beliefs of the big firms on Wall Street.
Instead of writing the 8,449th review of this book, my question was – what are these characters betting against now? Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean I think they’ll be right, but I’m still curious.
Michael Burry, Scion Capital
Burry no longer accepts money from outside investors (he doesn’t need to), but still invests at Scion Capital using his own money. He doesn’t write a blog or release his recent letters to shareholders to the public, except for a few old ones. He did make a April 2011 lecture at his alma mater Vanderbilt University entitled Missteps to Mayhem where he sees continued problems with the government printing too much money and not tackling our current fiscal problems.
The government’s borrowing of money for the purpose of injecting cash into society, bailing out banks, brokers, and consumers, is a short-sighted, easy decision for a population that has not yet learned that short-sighted and easy strategies are the route to long-term ruin.
He ends his speech with the ominous advice “All that said, I might suggest opening a retail banking account in Canada.” I’m not even sure that’s possible to do as a U.S. citizen… is it?
From this complete transcript of a September 2010 interview with Bloomberg, he states that he believes that “productive agricultural land with water on site is — will be very valuable in the future”, he is bullish on gold due to currency debasement, but he doesn’t have a good feel for the timing of things as it could take a while to play out.
Steve Eisman, FrontPoint Partners
Eisman left FrontPoint in June 2011 and is reported to start his own hedge fund Emrys Partners in 2012. He has gotten the most publicity in recent years for shorting the stocks of certain for-profit colleges taking advantage of easy credit from government student loans. Basically, people who can’t get into traditional colleges are pitched a great future and convinced to take out large amounts of debt that they can’t pay back, all so these pseudo-accredited colleges can profit. Sound familiar? From a 2010 conference speech:
Until recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive and morally bankrupt as the subprime mortgage industry. I was wrong. The for-profit education industry has proven equal to the task. [...] This is similar to the subprime mortgage sector in that the subprime originators bore far less risk than the investors in their mortgage paper.
I also looked for information on Charles Ledley and James Mai of Cornwall Capital, but really didn’t come up with much. They have a website, but there is nothing to see for the public.
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The (Next) Big Short: Current Investments of Michael Burry and Steve Eisman from My Money Blog.
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Michael Lewis’s New Book – Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World – Free Copy Online
October 13th, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors
I’ve enjoyed every Michael Lewis book that I’ve read, from Liar’s Poker to Moneyball to The Blind Side. Reading his writing is as easy as listening to a great storyteller, making the most mundane subjects interesting. I’ve been hearing about his new book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, and was surprised learn from Felix Salmon of Reuters that the book is simply a collection of previously written articles from Vanity Fair magazine. Articles that are still available, for free, online!
I looked inside a copy of the book, and it’s true. Amazon reviews confirm it. The articles are the same, word for word. You can even read the only “new” thing, the Preface, online for free at Amazon since it’s the “free first chapter”. I don’t feel bad sharing this, since Vanity Fair paid Lewis good money to write these articles, put them up publicly with ads, and no doubt enjoy the traffic. So if you want to read Boomerang electronically, the Table of Contents of the book is below. I used Instapaper on my iPod Touch and read parts of them while waiting at the doctor’s office.
Preface: The Biggest Short – Amazon book page (“Read first chapter FREE”)
I. Wall Street on the Tundra – Iceland (Partial only, but Archive.org has the entire article. Thanks to reader Travis.)
II. And They Invented Math – Greece
III. Ireland’s Original Sin – Ireland
IV. The Secret Lives of Germans – Germany
V. Too Fat To Fly – California
Warning: Reading this book will make you some combination of scared, angry, and depressed. I’ve only read the Preface, Greece, and California chapters, and I’m already seriously thinking of buying some gold and guns to join my food hoard. I remind myself that Lewis is a gifted storyteller, but some people still disagree with they see as oversimplification and broad stereotyping of cultures. But just going by the hard numbers given, I’m still worried.
* Update: The Iceland article has been changed to only a partial stub at VanityFair.com, pushing you to buy the book “The Hangover” to read the rest. Interesting, the same article recycled in two separate books. The rest of the articles are still up, but I’d print to PDF or similar in case they change them as well. The Iceland article was free to read for years before this book came out, so it’s still out there if you look hard enough. Update 2: A couple of astute readers found saved versions. I recommend visiting this Archive.org link and saving it quickly.
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Michael Lewis’s New Book – Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World – Free Copy Online from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2011.
View full post on My Money Blog
Michael Russnow: Chekhov Alive and Well in Hollywood: Two One-Acts at the Tres Stage Theatre
June 1st, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors Classical theatre may not be your thing, but this is an evening that most would find accessible and to their liking. And as an added bonus it’s cheap, with tickets just ten dollars.
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Michael Russnow: Chekhov Alive and Well in Hollywood: Two One-Acts at the Tres Stage Theatre
June 1st, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors Classical theatre may not be your thing, but this is an evening that most would find accessible and to their liking. And as an added bonus it’s cheap, with tickets just ten dollars.
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More on LA Culture
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Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: What if the Media Stopped Sensationalizing Sarah Palin?
May 31st, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors 
Instead of glamorizing Sarah Palin with Cover Girl photos, what if the media published photos of Team Palin as the flimflam as they really are?
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Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: What if the Media Stopped Sensationalizing Sarah Palin?
May 31st, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors Instead of glamorizing Sarah Palin with Cover Girl photos, what if the media published photos of Team Palin as the flimflam as they really are?
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Michael Giltz: Theater: “Much Ado” “Ends Well” At Globe
May 30th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ** 1/2 out of ****
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL **** out of ****
London is always worth visiting for theater. But if there’s any downside to a visit during the winter, it’s the fact that Shakespeare’s Globe isn’t open for performances then. It’s not just the best bargain in theater — it’s also some of the best theater, period. Now I’ve discovered that they’re adding to their site on South Bank an indoor jacobean Theatre that will be lit with candles to duplicate as closely as possible the atmosphere theatergoers would have experienced centuries ago. The Globe has been a marvelous success on every level and this new space is truly exciting. You can become a patron and support its construction. (Let’s hope they let Mark Rylance grace the stage as soon as possible.)
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Michael J. McGoldrick, Director, KPMG, to Speak at KC?s The Impact of the Final UTP Disclosure Requi
May 28th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsThe Knowledge Group/The Knowledge Congress Live Webcast Series, the leading producer of regulatory focused webcasts, has announced today that Michael J. McGoldrick, Director, KPMG LLP will speak at the Knowledge Congress’ webcast entitled: “The Impact of the Final UTP Disclosure Requirement on Tax Planning, Reporting, and Compliance LIVE Webcast.” This event is scheduled on June 17, 2011 from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM ET. (For further details, please visit: http://www.knowledgecongress.org/event_2011_UTP_Disclosure.html)Event Synopsis:The IRS issued Uncertain Tax Position (UTP) disclosure requirements in an effort to increase certainty, consistency, and efficiency in tax administration. This guidance affects corporate taxpayers, whose assets exceed $100… View full post on Live News from PR-USA.net
Michael Port: Innovtion Starts With You
May 28th, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors Every successful entrepreneur, indeed every successful person, is an innovator. You might be saying to yourself, “Not me, I’ll never invent the light bulb. Don’t confuse the idea of innovation with the idea of invention.
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Kurt Michael Friese: Why the Modern Tomato is Flawed: Inside Tomatoland
May 27th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsFirst let’s get one persistent canard out of the way. Yes, the tomato is technically a fruit, not a vegetable, but for purposes of economics the USDA classifies it as a vegetable, and as such it is the second most popular vegetable in the nation after that other burger staple, lettuce. This is surprising in only one respect: A vast majority of the tomatoes consumed in the U.S. every year ($5 billion worth), are devoid of the flavor and nutritive value they once had.
Sure, that plant your neighbor gave you that’s just beginning to enjoy the summer heat will produce lots of delicious, succulent tomatoes come August or September. But in his new book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit, two-time James Beard Award-winning journalist Barry Estabrook tells us why the modern factory-farmed tomato in most grocery stores is a poster child for nearly everything that is wrong with industrial agriculture. A recent USDA study, he points out, says that the average tomato of today, the kind on your Whopper or Taco Bell taco, has “30 percent less vitamin C, 30 percent less thiamin 19 percent less niacin, and 62 percent less calcium than it did in the 1960s. But that modern tomato does shame its 1960s counterpart in one respect: It contains 14 times as much sodium.”
This is because the tomatoes grown in the fields in and around Immokalee, Florida, where nearly one third of the tomatoes consumed in the U.S. are grown, are bred for one thing and one thing only. And it’s not flavor, and it’s not nutrition. It’s shipability, period. To qualify as grade A in that department, it needs to be a specific size, and a specific shape, and it needs to be picked while still green and rock hard. In fact, Estabrook relays a story of nearly losing control of his car as it was pelted with the tough green orbs bouncing off the back of a tractor-trailer on a Florida highway. The fruits hit the pavement at 60 mph and rolled to the gravel shoulder unscathed.
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