Four of the investors who called the subprime mortgage crisis reunited Tuesday on CNBC’s ” Fast Money” and unveiled their current big money bets. Porter Collins and Vincent Daniel, partners of Seawolf Capital, Steven Eisman, portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, and Danny Moses, advisor at RiskReversal Media shorted collateralized debt obligations and made millions profiting from the demise of subprime mortgage loans before the 2008 financial crisis. Their success was chronicled in Michael Lewis’ ” The Big Short ” in 2010, and the Oscar-winning movie based on the book in 2015. Collins of Seawolf Capital revealed that Tesla has been one of his firm’s best short bets this year. The electric vehicle company has seen its shares tumble almost 23% in 2024 after reporting fourth quarter profit and revenue that missed analysts’ estimates. “This has been a big underperforming stock and so I think they really have problems with sales,” Collins said. “I think eventually the market will come around to the fact that it’s really an auto company with, you know, not great tech.” Collins added that Seawolf is also shorting UPS . UPS fell short of Wall Street revenue estimates Tuesday, reporting lower domestic and internaional shipping volume and announcing 12,000 layoffs as part of an effort to cut costs in 2024. Infrastructure Eisman, who has been focusing on the long side the portfolio, said he has high conviction on his infrastructure bet. He has previously said he liked companies that specialize in building roads and factories, focus on automation and reshoring of manufacturing. “The government is going to be spending about $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. So there are a lot of things to do,” Eisman said. “I wouldn’t call that as big a conviction story as The Big Short. I mean, ‘The Big Short’ was taking on basically Western civilization.” Upstart short Moses at RiskReversal Media said he’s betting against artificial intelligence lending platform Upstart . The $3 billion market cap company sells for “almost five times book” value,” he said. “They’re no longer able to sell all the loans that they’re originating, and cloud based AI, all that stuff…They could put any name they want on it. It’s a lending company.” Shares of Upstart are down nearly 18% this year, perhaps reflecting that it’s one of the stocks that hedge funds love to bet against, with a high level of short interest.
