market folly

Noted short seller and founder of Kynikos Associates Jim Chanos recently appeared on CNBC to share his thoughts on the markets.

He mentioned that he feels that China is "worse than you think" and that "the biggest lesson over the last three months, for me anyways, is people are beginning to realize that the Chinese government is not omnipotent and omniscient."

Chanos, of course, has been a long time vocal skeptic on China's growth and property market.

Turning to the US, Chanos feels that people have gotten a bit 'complacent,' noting that markets have gone basically straight up and that's not how markets work.  He also mentioned that he's short Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Caterpillar (CAT), Shell, Chevron (CVX) and also unveiled a newly disclosed short: SolarCity (SCTY).

He called HPQ a "challenged business" and thinks it's in secular decline.  He says "in technology if you're not growing, you're in effect dying."

On CAT, he said it's a commodities supercycle problem.

On SCTY: Chanos argues the problem is that they have a residential model and it's really "a subprime financing company in effect" since they lease out solar panels.

Embedded below are clips from Chanos' interview:

On China:



On Hewlett Packard:



On SolarCity:



On Caterpillar:



For more from this short seller, be sure to also check out Jim Chanos' interview on Wall Street Week.