By Matt Weinschenk
THE BIGGEST LESSON OF MY INVESTMENT CAREER
I was one of the first people to know that Lehman Brothers would go bust, but I didn’t figure it out for myself.
I was just a 25-year-old kid sitting in the right place at the right time (the 2007 Value Investing Congress in New York City, to be exact). I was in the room when then-regarded short-seller David Einhorn walked the audience through his thesis for why the investment bank would go bust.
Einhorn didn’t regale the audience with a gripping story. He just talked accounting numbers. The shocks had already started to show in the banking system. Lehman looked like it had one of the worst loan portfolios of the banks, but it hadn’t written off any losses yet.
CLICK HERE TO READ THEWEB VERSION
American Consequences 29
Made with FlippingBook Annual report