Mon, Jun 29, 2026
A A A
Welcome Guest
Free Trial RSS pod
Get FREE trial access to our award winning publications
Alternative Market Briefing

Chanos shorting Chinese banks, notes debt potential may be worse than Greece

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

amb
Jim Chanos
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Jim Chanos, Founder of Kynikos Associates is a legendary short seller. His market viewpoints are widely followed by investors and managers alike. He was recently interviewed by Greg de Spoelberch for Opalesque TV.

Chanos has been a short seller almost since the beginning of his career. His first short was Baldwin United in 1982. "That got me thinking about the whole idea of whether or not there was a business to be made in fundamentally analyzing short ideas," he says. From this idea he founded Kynikos Associates in 1985 as a hedge fund management company to manage short-only partnerships.

Today, Kynikos has expanded, managing approximately $6bn with $5.5bn in short-only and the remainder in a long/short fund. Both the short-only and long/short programs invest globally.

"One of the things I hear often from people is, well, I do not like to short stocks because they can go up infinitely, but they can only go down to zero. I, of course, always point out that I have seen many more stocks go to zero than go to infinity," Chanos says by way of explaining why he prefers to short. One of his biggest current targets is China. Chanos has been outspoken on his view that China’s bad debts outpace those of Greece and Spain.

According to Chanos’ research, the current high level of infrastructure build up happening in China is ......................

To view our full article Click here

Previous Opalesque Exclusives                                  
Previous Other Voices                                               
Access Alternative Market Briefing

 



  • Top Forwarded
  • Top Tracked
  • Top Searched
  1. Other Voices: Nvidia extraordinary growth and the challenge of sustaining demanding valuations over time[more]

    Antonio Di Giacomo, Senior Market Analyst at XS.com, writes: Nvidia has established itself as one of the most extraordinary growth companies in the global technology sector. Over the past two fiscal years, its revenues have risen from levels close to $60 billion annually to well above $120 billi

  2. Secondaries take center stage: What the 2026 PE landscape means for GPs and investors[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The 2026 edition of Dechert's Global Private Equity Outlook - "Signs of a Gradual Thaw" - marks a notable shift in industry sentiment. After years of compr

  3. And, finally: Time to share it with the people[more]

    From Newsoftheweird: Leavenworth, Washington, has become a tourist destination because of the Bavarian theme businesses have adopted there, NPR reported. One shop, the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, houses the world's largest nutcracker collection, thanks to 101-year-old Arlene Wagner. Wagner sta

  4. Opalesque Exclusive: Private Markets Evergreen Funds - An Insider's View[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: Private Markets Evergreen Funds: What Investors Need to Know Before They Dive In The democratization of private markets is well underway. Structural barriers t

  5. Opalesque Exclusive: Governance, Scale, and Boutique Resilience in a Consolidating Hedge Fund Industry[more]

    Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: The hedge fund industry has undergone significant consolidation in recent years, with capital increasingly concentrated among large multi-strategy platforms. Yet boutique m