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Did he... link the wrong URL at the end of the post? I thought for sure it was going to be some sort of heartfelt speech, or motivational message, or something. But it's an instrumental DJ set which seems totally out of left field
I've ironically lost more money the more closely I've paid attention to my investments because I was naively confident in the market's ability (or as I've come to suspect, willingness) to react to evidence of fraud. The amount of deceit put out into the world and gobbled up, on purpose, in business is obscene and seriously depressing. The magnitude of damage to psyches and thus economies that anyone acting in a fraud…
Which also means being careful of short selling. It can put you at unlimited risk even if you are absolutely right.
Has anyone else publicly copied the Hindenburg investigation/financial model? It's not proprietary AFAIK.
Has anyone else publicly copied the Hindenburg investigation/financial model? It's not proprietary AFAIK.
It's a hard business to make money in. Shorting tends to be intrinsically harder because the market goes up over time and Americans are generally optimists. Plus the last 2 years we've seen 20+% market moves upwards. Despite it being a necessity for functioning markets, when you are short, seemingly everyone is against you - business management, regulators, media, etc. Not surprised to see them bow out. Chanos did so…
On its surface, nothing crazy for long/short funds, the notable part was that basically all the effort was on the short side, and the long side was implied to be very humdrum. And the short book had like negative returns over a long period. It just struck me as a really elegant (if extreme) example of what uncorrelated returns can do if you do somehow have some edge over time.
And I'm not sure what Hindenburg's holistic picture is, but whether rightly or wrongly now I usually assume most of the kind of very public shorts operate similarly. I was never really on board with the "short sellers are evil" train of thought, but I did believe, "oh these very public short sellers only short things, they just go around all the time thinking everything is awful". And my assumption now is that they are like, kind of really theatric long/short funds.
Matt had some line like if you extremely good at something, you can get rich doing it, even if it loses money. As long as it's not correlated.
"...Hindenburg Research specializes in forensic financial research.
...we believe the most impactful research results from uncovering hard-to-find information from atypical sources. In particular we often look for situations where companies may have any combination of: ... • Undisclosed related-party transactions..."
I would love to see whether Bayesian inference can be applied to quantitatively establish when "there's a there there' in any given situation. When is the unlikelihood of a coincidence transcend beyond the level of background noise?
I can't think of a more honorable way to move through life. I liken the act of closing shop at this point for Hindenburg to the legend I know of Cincinnatus, the Roman emperor who did the job of emperoring and went back to his fields when it was done.
It also moves me how the team is described, as being from whatever background, but all moved by the same fire. I wish that I could be a part of something like that. What the hell am I doing with my life?
they just completed their "pipeline of ideas" with "the last Ponzi cases" - seems like a surprisingly clean and abrupt end for an investigative organization
the team members are "brilliant" and "family to me" but heis disbanding rather than transitioning leadership
He mentions some team members are starting their own research firm but he "will have no personal involvement" That emphasis seems noteworthy
Claims there's "no particular threat" but takes pains to emphasize this multiple times
instead of maintaining the organization and training successors directly, he's planning to release videos and materials about their methods
No mention of the firm's financial position or client relationships
Not buying it, there's a story but it doesnt seem like he wants to tell it
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm assuming when he says "governments taking a look at" he means like the Indian government and it's more of a Mafia-type "taking a look at" than a serious inquiry with any actual merit. A strongarm type thing
I think its brought attention to numerous cases of accounting and other shenanigans. What I've noticed, casually, is that they often target companies or management with a pattern of fraud and abuse, and surprise they keep doing it. VP of Sales gets slapped on the wrist for illegal tactics? A few years later he goes on to be promoted to CEO and.... does the same thing! Amazing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the sum of it is “has the company been caught doing fraud more than once and haven’t been shut down? They’re still doing fraud”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm assuming when he says "governments taking a look at" he means like the Indian government and it's more of a Mafia-type "taking a look at" than a serious inquiry with any actual merit. A strongarm type thing
Pretty big allegations without any source.
You can draw your own conclusions but a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars being audited by a mom and pop shop is more evidence than anyone needs that their books are made up.
The fact that the Adani group couldn’t refute any of their claims was pretty telling as well.