Update on Chanos and his China Short

Maneet Ahuja’s got an excerpt from her book The Alpha Masters live at the Huffington Post.  It features Jim Chanos, he of the massive bet against China and related sectors here in the US.  Chanos has been pounding the table on this thesis since 2009 and much of what he’s talked about has been coming to fruition, slowly but surely…

Presently, Kynikos is short the property developers in China through the H-shares in Hong Kong as well as most of the larger Chinese banks, which the firm believes are going to need ongoing injections of capital, much of which will come from Western investors. The fund has been short an oddball collection of one-off Chinese companies, such as Chinese Media Express, that have floated issues in the United States. Chanos has dubbed casinos “long corruption, short property.” But his overall short in China stands as one of the highest exposures he has had to a single theme. China is one thing he’s betting against in a big way — it currently stands as the highest exposure he’s ever had to a single theme in the portfolio.

Although one economist estimated that 64-million apartments are empty, “what we do know is that if you drive by all kinds of tier one, tier two, and tier three cities at night in developments that are completely sold out, most of the buildings are dark at night, so there are a lot of empty apartment buildings in China. We just don’t know how many,” says Chanos.

Click over for the whole thing today:

Hedge Fund Manager James Chanos on His Big Short Position in China (HuffPo)