Marc Cohodes
Marc Cohodes is one of the greatest and most feared short sellers in the world. A living legend among short sellers, he has investigated and brought down some major frauds in the past. Some of his famed battles are against the Belgian software developer Lernout & Hauspie and his campaign against the US mortgage lender NovaStar, which was later documented as a case study by Harvard Business School. He is also a renowned mentor in the art of short selling, offering his perspective on the discipline, temperament required, and the intellectual rewards of this career. After making a name for himself as a General Partner at hedge fund Rocker Partners around the Dot Com Boom and Bust, he has dedicated himself to running his own money, and finding and exposing frauds.
Marc Cohodes Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Analyst
Academic History
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BS, Finance
Marc Cohodes is one of the most feared short sellers on the planet.
In 1982, he landed a position with Northern Trust Corporation, where he met an analyst named Paul Landini who taught him about short selling.
Cohodes is best known for exposing fraud at mortgage lender Novastar Financial. He is now a subject of a Harvard Business Review case study.
He also sniffed out major problems at software groups Lernout & Hauspie and AremisSoft, as well as drugmaker AaiPharma.
He also famously predicted the collapse of FTX and Silvergate Capital Corporation.
SHORT SELLING ADVICE
Don't get involved in something you can't explain to a 10th grader with a single paragraph.
Don't get into biotech, dreamy, or pie in the sky.
Look for shi**y companies, frauds, criminals, bad actors, charlatans, something stupid, career misfits.
Don't look unless you think you can make a 60-90% return.
Look for many ways to win—not just one.
Don't short anything 'legitimate companies'. A good acid test for 'legitness' is if people would miss that company if it wasn't here tomorrow.
Don't short the big overvalued tech firms like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Netflix, etc.
Legit companies use stock to finance their business. Bad companies try to create a stock and then the business second.
MEDIA & APPEARANCES
Cohodes has been profiled in various books like Reckless Endangerment, Selling America Short and The Most Dangerous Trade.
He has been featured or quoted in Bloomberg, Fortune Magazine, Reuters, Business Insider, Institutional Investor, The New York Times, Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, Cointelegraph, Real Vision, and more.