Comment by jordanb
14 days ago
Ironically I think Chanos got murdered by the data center boom. Back before his fund folded he was talking constantly about how data center REITs were an awful business by the numbers and they were an artifact of ZIRP because they were making small amounts of revenue on large amounts of capital. Longer term they were slowly losing to market consolidation by the "hyperscalers" (AWS, Azure etc).
His thesis was sound in a rational world but our world isn't rational anymore and his data center REIT short got obliterated by the AI bubble.
>His thesis was sound in a rational world but our world isn't rational anymore and his data center REIT short got obliterated by the AI bubble.
I suspect he might be a bit bitter about that one. He has also shorted tesla (rightly or wrongly) as well as Carvana
His Tesla short was off many years before his fund closed and he pretty much said he wasn't going to bet in meme stocks since their value is so detached from any kind of objective analysis.
The problem for him (and muddy waters and other shorts) was the memification of the entire economy. If you listen to his data center REIT short thesis it was very sound. Data center REITs were not meme stocks and there was every reason for them to respond to economic gravity. There was a lot of inflow of capital during ZIRP leading to a lot of buildout, but with the end of ZIRP the low return on capital in their business was going to kill them. But then the AI bubble came along and everything within three degrees of bacon went to the moon.