market folly

Fresh off taking third place in a World Series of Poker tournament with a $1 million dollar buy-in (and donating winnings to charity), David Einhorn of hedge fund Greenlight Capital gave a rare appearance on CNBC this morning talking about a myriad of topics.

Here are the major takeaways from his talk with the full video below:

- Einhorn thinks near-zero interest rates are depriving savers and raising prices on food and other necessary items.  He'd tell Bernanke to raise rates.

- It would appear that he's still short Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) as he said "Yeah, the Keurig is on the way out."  Einhorn talked about some of his other short positions in his Ira Sohn Conference presentation.

- Thinks he'll be in the Apple (AAPL) investment for "a good while longer" and he thinks it's "substantially undervalued ... it's the best big growth company we have ... and it trades at a multiple below the average of the S&P 500."  He's already been in the investment for 2-3 years.

- On Amazon, Einhorn is not long or short.  He made comments about Amazon in his Ira Sohn presentation that caused confusion a few months ago.  Today he said that "AMZN is very tough on its competitors... it doesn't feel compelled to make a profit ... it's very hard to compete against someone who doesn't want to make a profit."  He clarified that he was mainly talking about how AMZN is negatively affecting other companies.

- On Herbalife (HLF):  Commentators pressed Einhorn on whether or not he was invested in Herbalife.  Einhorn showed up on one of the company's recent earnings calls and asked some questions.  The stock sold off heavily as many assumed Einhorn was short or was planning to short HLF.  Today, Einhorn declined to talk about whether he had a position in the name long or short.  But he did so with a big smile, so all you poker players out there can try to read into his body language to see if he might be giving a "tell."


Embedded below is the video of David Einhorn's video interview:



For more on this manager, we've highlighted how Einhorn recently added to his Seagate stake and you can also check out Greenlight Capital's Q1 letter.