market folly

At the Skybridge Alternative Conference (SALT) in Las Vegas today, John Burbank (Passport Capital), Robert Koenigsberger (Gramcery), Karthik Sankaran (Covepoint Capital), and Christian Angermayer (Angermayer, Brumm & Lange Group) talked about identifying opportunities within emerging markets.


John Burbank argued that a recession was coming in the US in the second half of the year.  We've posted up Passport Capital's Q1 letter explaining why they're net short.  He acknowledges that it's not a popular belief, but he believes it's going to happen as markets will correlate and head lower.

He also advocated Saudi equities, saying that it's like India in 2003 as hardly anyone is investing there yet.  We've posted up Passport's Saudi equity theses as well.  Burbank additionally said a euro sovereign crisis is ahead.


Robert Koenigsberger talked about how the BRICs are overbought (Brazil, Russia, India China).  Also, even though investors usually find volatility and downtrodden markets as potentially good places to invest, he thinks it's too early to invest in Europe.


Karthik Sankaran pointed out India and China as the most interesting emerging markets.  He also likes interest rate plays.


For more notes from the SALT Conference, check out:


-  Notes from panel with Kyle Bass, Dmitry Balyasny & Steven Tananbaum


- Barry Rosenstein, Leon Cooperman & Joel Greenblatt's panel on stocks


- Risk panel with Phil Falcone and Eric Sprott



The above was compiled from notes sent in along with help from live tweets from: @ldelevingne , @pdmckenna ,  @AttainCapital & @realrobcopeland