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.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 11/17/2020

Jim Chanos is the founder and Managing Partner of Kynikos Associates LP. As the world’s largest exclusive short selling investment firm, Kynikos Associates LP provides investment management services for domestic and offshore clients. The Kynikos Capital Partners, Kynikos Global Capital Partners Ursus, Kriticos, and Kynikos Opportunity funds seek to profit from the unusually high alphas found on the long and short side of the U.S. and non-U.S. equity markets. Throughout his investment career, Mr. Chanos has identified and sold short the shares of numerous well-known corporate financial disasters; among them, Baldwin-United, Commodore International, Coleco, Integrated Resources, Boston Chicken, Sunbeam, Conseco, and Tyco International. His celebrated short-sale of Enron shares was dubbed by Barron’s as “the market call of the decade, if not the past fifty years.” Mr. Chanos has testified before Congress and provided comments to regulations proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom. He is currently a Lecturer in Finance at the Yale School of Management teaching a class on the history of financial fraud. Mr. Chanos received his BA in economics and political science in 1980 from Yale University.