Taps Coogan – February 1st, 2023

Enjoy The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.

Legendary short seller and founder of Kynikos Associates, Jim Chanos – perhaps the last great short seller to have their reputation survive the Post-Global Financial Crisis world, recently spoke with CNBC to warn that stocks are still not cheap.

 

After briefly discussing the obvious, that war with China would be bad for markets and everything else, he noted the following:

“We don’t try to time the market but, like anybody else, I have opinions and things are not cheap. Things are not as expensive as they were a year-and-a-half ago. On the other hand, the market is at 18 times forward (earnings). Profit margins are at all-time highs… One of the most mean-reverting time-series in all of economics and finance is corporate profitability and it’s been stubbornly good and high. Since I’ve been on the street, since 1980, not one bear market has ever traded above 9-14 times the previous peak earnings…”

There is more to the discussion so enjoy it above.