The 7 most epic shorts in finance history
Going long a security has always had a wholesome ring to it; it says you believe in a company, you see a bright future for it, you stand by its management, and you back it up by investing in it.
Going short however has the stigma of nastiness; its Machiavellian, sinister, a bit like doing the old in out to an unconsenting devotchka or watching a new Tom cruise movie. It’s wrong, leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and has been called “un-American”.
Unlike Tom Cruise however, going short is awesome, and often leads to interesting stories.
Without further ado, here are the 7 most epic plungers in history.
Shorted stocks during the 1929 crash all the way to the bottom to the tune of $100,000,000. But he came home to an empty house; his wife, who heard of the crash, feared they became insolvent and moved all their furniture and belongings to the guest house. Upon meeting Mrs. Livermore he said, “I made the most money I ever had today” and then had the stuff sent back.
“It’s going to be Rock and Roll.” “It will have Wall Street in a tizzy and it will create headlines that will dwarf anything at this point in time.” Hell yeah it did, Tudor gained over 80% that October alone shorting S&P’s. PTJ, who was in his early 30’s then, supposedly banked $100 million for himself.
In the aftermath of Black Monday, Krieger; a vegetarian, Sanskrit expert turned cheeseburger munching FX trader at Bankers Trust, set his sights on the New Zealand Dollar. Amassing a short position larger than the entire New Zealand money supply, he caused massive losses in local industries and turned the Kiwi into “a wounded pigeon.” He worked for Soros the next year but quit before getting his bonus, setting stage for…
If Black Wednesday was a horror movie, “Go for the jugular” would have been the last words the GBP would have heard before its screams. The Quantum fund spent two days selling the Pound out of the ERM, banking them a billion and naming Soros “The man who broke the Bank of England.”
Enron.
You know when a trades going your way when the price ticks the way you want it, and even more so when you get the CFO fired. Einhorn already had a name in the hedge fund world but when he publicly took down Lehman, and saw Fuld and crew burn to the ground, he cemented himself as a heavy hitter.
So which of these was the greatest of all?
Would you rather have made $100 million shorting the world in 1929?
Or would you rather take down Fortune 400 companies?
Enjoy your weekend WSO.
$100 million in '29 with inflation figured in just think about it
Wikipedia said it would have been between 1 - 13.7 billion in today's money.
All I'm sayin is those are some happy lookin pants in your picture
Gotta go with Soros...that was so badass seeing the PM have to acknowledge the devaluation... plus he made a Bill... pretty impressive
squirtlez shorting tlt and bp
soros though one man stood against tyrany
Of the 7 most epic shorts in the world 5 were credited to MC Hammer.
Oh, wait, wrong thread.
2008: Bretton James uses his private accounts to short Keller Zabel down to $3 a share and then uses Chruchill Shwartz to fucking acquire them the next day. He pillages that place so bad that he gets Lou Zabel to kill himself, it was brutal. There was a really shitty documentary about it in theaters earlier this year, did anyone else see it? Let me try to see if I can find the title somewhere...
please do
Toy Story 3
Tim Sykes or shorttheworld...
i love all the devotchki, lol
David Tepper beats them all. His shorts gained him $4billion in 09, which is a tad bit more than inflation adjusted 100 million in 1929.
Wasn't he long financials?
Jeez. I had no idea.
$100 mil in 1929 would have been ridiculous. He probably could have bought a state for that much back then.
$100 mil in 1929 would have been ridiculous. He probably could have bought a state for that much back then.
Currently reading einhorn's book about ALD and it's hilarious.
I vote for einhorn, AFAIK with the exception of soros he's the only one who really had any control over his success in that he actually pushed the companies into bankruptcy.
Is it? Was just checking it out on Amazon but I just ordered a lot of books so I dunno.
Not a lot of love for Paulson so far, was half expecting a few people to go Paulson is da man! or something. Guess a lot really does feel that it was just a fluke.
Definitely. I actually started reading it because someone (I think kennypowerscfa) said on here that it was a good look at a start-up type hedge fund which i was curious about after there was some discussion of what it would take to start one.
If you want to decide if you'll enjoy reading it, watch the 20 minute clip on the website of the actual speech. (foolingsomepeople.com) because while very interesting, the book is very technical--actually I read a forbes article that reviewed the book and the author pointed out that if einhorn had focused more on the personal dramas etc and less technical aspects he would have a much broader audience...he also pointed out that the level of technicality is the reason why einhorn is a millionaire (billionaire?) and he isn't :)
In the foreword written by greenblatt, he says if it weren't for eating and sleeping or something like that, I would have read this book in one sitting, so take this for what it's worth.
Im going with Einhorn. I just re-watched his speech about going short on Allied Capital. He turned the conference into a comedy club at Allied's expense.
Soros and Druckenmiller take all of these.
These are the success stories, I wonder how many others lost everything going short.
Livermore's $100mm would be worth $125bn today if it was all put into the Dow and reinvested. Unfortunately he lost 95% of that sum in the next decade and then killed himself.
Book About Large Successful Shorts? (Originally Posted: 02/19/2014)
I was wondering if there are any books on previous large successful shorts, and the reasoning behind them. i.e. A case study of the catalysts, or where the ideas were generated. Thanks
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time Confidence Game The Art of Short Selling Financial Shenanigans
In addition to what @Anchor said, check out Pershing and Greenlight's investor letters and speeches (i.e. Einhorn's speeches disucssing Lehman)
Hmmmm....a large, successful short? I'm completely drawing a blank...
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
The title that jumped straight to the front of my brain.
Echo the books suggested by Anchor.
http://amzn.com/0979549701
Dude ran the "#1 short biased fund"
Isn't this the book on penny stocks exclusively?
The Greatest Trade Ever
art of short selling is by far the best here
David Einhorn has the goods in this department. 'Fooling some of the people all of the time' is a great read about his short play on Allied. The Alpha Masters is another great read.
Einhorn Shorts? (Originally Posted: 03/13/2011)
My finance professor has convinced me to go against the permabull inside me and give my portfolio some sort of short exposure and I decided the best way to do that is to look at some of Einhorn's short positions. On the 13F-HR, I'm assuming "SHS" stands for shares held short?
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1079114/000114036111009210/form1…
I don't often look at other fund's 13-Fs, but the SHS does not stand for shares held short, it is simply the title of the share class...
Short positions are not required to be disclosed in a 13F
Short OPEN, NFLX, PCLN, CRM to name but a few...
13-Fs generally do not disclose direct short positions, and though option positions are disclosed the information isn't really enough to determine what the play is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_13F
For example, this Greenlight 13-F shows options on Allied but not the direct short: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1079114/000131586307000037/grn46…
Same with Lehman in this 13-F: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1079114/000131586308000188/grnlh…
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