Hedge Fund - Kynikos

Jim Chanos is many people’s favorite short seller. He almost singlehandedly vindicated short sellers by revealing the ongoing fraud at Enron and WorldCom. Jim Chanos is the master of short selling. Like David Einhorn, Jim Chanos grew up in Milwaukee. Chanos graduated from Yale with an economics degree. He has been in the business of short selling for more than two decades now. Kynikos, which is the Greek word for cynic, short sells stocks and his fees depend on the performance of his portfolio relative to the market. So when the market goes up by 20% and his portfolio loses 12%, he receives a portion of the 8% difference between the market and his portfolio. He has around $3-6 Billion under management.

Chanos holds a tight control on his company. He and his partners come up with the investment ideas by reading newspapers and financial publications. They don’t believe in forcing analysts to come up with ideas because he and the partners are the ones with the experience and they get paid to do exactly this.