引言

Joe Weisenthal: Hello there, Odd Lots listeners. You are about to listen to a very special episode. This is a conversation recorded live at our recent event in New York. That's right. We had a live Odd Lots event on June 26th. We had tons of conversations. We're going to be rolling them out in the days ahead. But the first one we want to bring you was our headliner for the night, Jim Chanos. That's right. The famed shortseller. He was there giving us all his thoughts on the market right now. So, take a listen.

Joe Weisenthal: 各位 Odd Lots 的听众，大家好。你们即将收听一期非常特别的节目。这是我们在最近纽约现场活动中录制的一段对话。没错，我们在6月26日举办了一场 Odd Lots 现场活动，进行了大量对话。我们将在接下来的日子里陆续发布这些内容。但我们想带给大家的第一场，是我们当晚的头牌嘉宾——吉姆·查诺斯（Jim Chanos）。没错，就是那位著名的卖空者。他在现场与我们分享了他对当前市场的所有看法。那么，请听。

关于“比特币金库公司”的疯狂

Joe Weisenthal: All right. First question. Are Bitcoin Treasury companies the stupidest thing you've ever seen in your entire life?

Joe Weisenthal: 好的，第一个问题。“比特币金库公司”（Bitcoin Treasury Companies）是你这辈子见过的最愚蠢的事情吗？

Jim Chanos: You know, it's rarely that I have to increase my personal security after a podcast, which I had to do after your our last podcast together when I sent some intemperate things about Bitcoin Treasury companies.

Jim Chanos: 你知道，我很少因为一期播客就得加强我的个人安保，但在上次和你们录完播客后我却不得不这么做，因为当时我对“比特币金库公司”说了一些过激的话。

Jim Chanos: Look, I mean, here's the thing. I get people very agitated about this and they point out on just what a genius idea this is and I keep trying to point out to them I'm doing the same thing that guys like Michael Saylor are doing. I'm on the same side of the trade. And I keep pointing out to my critics, you're on the opposite side of that trade. And you don't want to be on the opposite side of the trade. And the Bitcoin Treasury paradox being that you are the one buying the pieces of paper that have infinite supply so that Michael Saylor and I can buy the digital asset with the limited supply. And it makes kind of no sense.

Jim Chanos: 听着，是这样的。我让一些人对此感到非常激动，他们指出这主意有多么天才，而我一直试图向他们说明，我做的事情和迈克尔·塞勒（Michael Saylor）那样的人是一样的。我们在这笔交易中是同一方。我不断向我的批评者指出，你们才是在交易的另一方，而你们并不想站在交易的另一方。这个“比特币金库悖论”在于，你们是那些购买可以无限供应的纸质凭证（指公司股票）的人，这样迈克尔·塞勒和我才能去购买那个供应有限的数字资产。这有点说不通。

Jim Chanos: So what will inevitably happen is happening in that is there's nothing proprietary here. This is just simply raising capital to buy a financial asset and other companies will do this. And in fact even since the podcast we last did I think the number of companies that have announced this strategy is, you know, scores more. I think there's over a hundred in the US and over 200 globally now.

Jim Chanos: 所以，不可避免会发生的事情正在发生，那就是这里面没有任何专有技术。这仅仅是通过筹集资本来购买一种金融资产，其他公司也会这么做。事实上，自从我们上次录播客以来，我认为宣布这一策略的公司数量又多了几十家。我想现在美国已经有超过一百家，全球超过两百家了。

Tracy Alloway: So who's actually buying MicroStrategy? I thought once the spot ETFs, the spot bitcoin ETFs came out like this business model would go away and it hasn't.

Tracy Alloway: 那么，到底是谁在买MicroStrategy的股票呢？我原以为一旦现货比特币ETF问世，这种商业模式就会消失，但它并没有。

Jim Chanos: No. And because there's a wonderful sales job that's being done about the fact that this is an economic engine in and of itself. And so therefore terms like Bitcoin yield are are used and and I've called them financial gibberish because they are. and and in fact this will get arbed away ultimately by companies that will do this to try to capture that spread. In the case of MicroStrategy, it's substantial. It's still $50 billion something like that of the difference between the value of the enterprise value of the company and the value of their Bitcoin holdings.

Jim Chanos: 没有消失。因为有人在做非常出色的营销，说这本身就是一个经济引擎。因此，像“比特币收益”（Bitcoin yield）这样的术语被使用，我称之为“金融胡言”，因为它们就是。事实上，这种溢价最终会被那些同样这么做、试图攫取价差的公司通过套利消除掉。就MicroStrategy而言，这个溢价相当可观，其企业价值与其持有的比特币价值之间的差额仍然在500亿美元左右。

Jim Chanos: But the thing that really kind of shot me into orbit on all this was when Saylor and others then said, "Well, no, you can't really value us on an NAV basis... You actually have to also give us additional value for the amount of profit that we make every quarter from the appreciation in the asset." I said I just pointed out I said, "Well, that's like saying, you know, my whole net worth is in a house that's worth $400,000 that that is now worth $500,000 a year or two later. And my net worth is not $500,000 now. It's $2.5 million because it's the value of the house plus a multiple on the increase in the profitability of the asset."

Jim Chanos: 但真正让我对这一切感到震惊的是，当塞勒和其他人说：“不，你不能真的按资产净值（NAV）来给我们估值……你实际上还必须因为我们每个季度从资产增值中获得的利润，再给我们额外的价值。”我当时就指出：“好吧，这就好比说，我全部的净资产是一栋价值40万美元的房子，一两年后它值50万美元了。然后我的净资产现在不是50万美元，而是250万美元，因为它是房子的价值，再加上资产盈利能力增长的一个倍数。”

Joe Weisenthal: When you put it that way, it sounds a little absurd.

Joe Weisenthal: 你这么一说，听起来是有点荒谬。

Jim Chanos: It is absurd.

Jim Chanos: 它就是荒谬的。

Tracy Alloway: Why did MicroStrategy switch from issuing the convertible debt to preferred shares?

Tracy Alloway: 为什么MicroStrategy从发行可转换债券转向了发行优先股？

Jim Chanos: Because he realized that as he began to issue more and more common, it was putting pressure on the premium. So now the latest iteration is well we're going to do this quasi equity security quasi debt preferred stock and then we can torque up we can lever up the balance sheet... And now they're saying, well, you know, if maybe if it trades above 2x, we'll issue equity, but if it's between one and 2x, we'll do preferred. And then if it's below one times, we'll buy back common. And then what is Chanos going to do? To which I said, well, I'll be out of the trade by then. You know, if it's a one times NAV, it's not a trade. The narrative keeps changing.

Jim Chanos: 因为他意识到，当他开始发行越来越多的普通股时，这对溢价造成了压力。所以现在最新的版本是，我们要发行这种准股权、准债务的优先股，然后我们就可以加杠杆，撬动资产负债表……现在他们说，如果股价在资产净值的两倍以上交易，我们就发行股权；如果在一到两倍之间，我们就发行优先股；如果低于一倍，我们就回购普通股。然后他们问：“查诺斯会怎么做？”对此我说：“到那个时候我已经退出这笔交易了。”你知道，如果它只是一倍的资产净值，那就没有交易价值了。叙事一直在变。

关于纽约房地产和做空SL Green

Joe Weisenthal: So, on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, shares in real estate companies fell after victory. What's your take on New York City real estate these days?

Joe Weisenthal: 所以，在周二或周三早上，房地产公司的股票在（初选）胜利后下跌了。你对如今的纽约市房地产有什么看法？

Jim Chanos: Well, I guess I'm glad I sold my apartment last year. But look, I think a lot of people are surprised. Clearly, New York City real estate and commercial real estate will be challenged if a lot of things happen that the current front runner, you know, wants to happen... But my friends in New York City commercial real estate have said really the regulatory framework and the legislative framework in New York and New York City has done nothing but get worse over the last 15 years. And I'm kind of stunned that that some of the publicly traded um companies like Vornado and SL Green still have the cap rates as low as they do. I mean SLG we looked at yesterday and its cap rate is still 5.2%.

Jim Chanos: 嗯，我猜我很高兴我去年卖掉了我的公寓。但听着，我认为很多人都感到惊讶。很明显，如果目前的领跑者想要实现的很多事情发生，纽约市的房地产和商业地产将面临挑战……但我在纽约商业地产界的朋友们说，在过去15年里，纽约和纽约市的监管框架和立法框架只是一味地变得更糟。我有点震惊，像Vornado和SL Green这样一些上市公司的资本化率（Cap Rate：衡量房地产投资回报率的指标）居然还这么低。我的意思是，我们昨天看了SLG，它的资本化率仍然是5.2%。

Joe Weisenthal: You're short SLG now.

Joe Weisenthal: 你现在正在做空SLG。

Jim Chanos: We've been we've been short SLG on and off for for a number of years and we are again. And I just I don't get the risk-reward on on a 5.2% cap rate on New York City commercial real estate right now. I think it should be seven or eight.

Jim Chanos: 我们在过去几年里断断续续地做空SLG，现在又在做空。我只是不理解，现在纽约商业地产5.2%的资本化率，其风险回报比在哪里。我认为它应该是7%或8%。

Joe Weisenthal: Right. You can get four and a half percent by buying a treasury.

Joe Weisenthal: 是的。你买国债就能拿到4.5%的收益了。

Jim Chanos: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so if you're buying it at 5.2, you're... And that that's REIT accounting. REIT accounting is also pretty pretty squirrely, by the way, for a lot of reasons. you know, they don't include overhead in the cap rate. And of course, there is real depreciation in some of this stuff. There's maintenance capex in New York City. It's pretty high. And that doesn't include any capex. So, I don't get it. I don't see rents going up here.

Jim Chanos: 对，完全正确。所以如果你用5.2%的收益率买入……而且那是REIT（房地产投资信托基金）的会计方法。顺便说一下，REIT的会计方法因为很多原因也相当古怪。你知道，他们不把管理费用算进资本化率里。当然，这些资产存在真实的折旧，纽约市的维护性资本支出（capex）很高，而这还不包括在内。所以我不理解。我看不到这里的租金会上涨。

作为卖空者的乐趣与挑战

Tracy Alloway: Okay. Well, since we mentioned the word bleak a couple times um in these conversations now, is it bleak being a short seller in the current market?

Tracy Alloway: 好的。既然我们现在在对话中提了几次“惨淡”这个词，那么在当前市场做个卖空者是不是很惨淡？

Jim Chanos: Well, it's not a lot of fun. But it's never really been fun. I mean, I started my original fund back in '85. The Dow was at 1300. So, it's it's pretty much and you know, we started hedging back in 96. So, you know, it's it's always a slug. It's never easy. It's why a lot of people don't do it. On the other hand, the idiosyncratic opportunities, most things fail as you know and the idiosyncratic opportunities have probably never been greater given the market we have now and with things like Bitcoin treasury companies and all kinds of other things. They just are sort of headscratchers and are a function of general animal spirits. So, there's a lot to do.

Jim Chanos: 嗯，没什么乐趣。但其实从来就没什么乐趣。我的意思是，我85年创立我最初的基金时，道琼斯指数是1300点。我们从96年开始做对冲。所以，这总是一场硬仗，从来都不容易，这也是为什么很多人不做的原因。但另一方面，个股的特殊机会（idiosyncratic opportunities），你知道大多数事情都会失败，而在我们现在的市场环境下，有了像比特币金库公司这类东西，个股的特殊机会可能从未像现在这么多。它们就是让人摸不着头脑，是普遍的“动物精神”的产物。所以，有很多事情可以做。

Joe Weisenthal: You know, it's like several years ago or 2021, people could have blamed ZIRP. It's like, oh, it's because the rates are at zero and that's why everyone's going crazy. And I do think it's really interesting how much speculative activity has persisted and the ZIRP excuse does not hold water anymore。

Joe Weisenthal: 你知道，就像几年前或2021年，人们可以归咎于零利率政策（ZIRP）。他们会说，“哦，这是因为利率为零，所以大家才这么疯狂。”但我确实觉得很有趣的是，投机活动持续了这么久，而零利率的借口已经站不住脚了。

个股做空机会：数据中心与Carvana

数据中心：并非稳赚不赔的仓库

Joe Weisenthal: Speaking of idiosyncratic opportunities, one thing you've been talking about a lot and multiple times on the show is the data center REITs. And Equinix I think just had two terrible days in a row. What's going on with them?

Joe Weisenthal: 说到个股机会，有一件事你一直在谈论，并且在节目中多次提及，那就是数据中心REITs。Equinix我想刚刚连续两天表现糟糕。他们怎么了？

Jim Chanos: So I think the legacy data centers... the idea being that that the new GPU-centric data centers need liquid cooling, they basically need all the infrastructure ripped out and replaced and the business was not a high return on capital business before this, it's getting even worse now. And what Equinix said yesterday at their analyst day was that revenues were not going to quite be what people thought they would be, but more ominously capex was going to keep increasing. And that's what we've been saying that that these are not like warehouses where you just kind of collect a check. These are actually operating businesses... and they're traded as REITs and that was kind of the opportunity... people added back the depreciation as they do with REITs and they valued them on a so-called FFO or AFFO which is a cash flow metric but in fact unlike warehouses... the capex was real depreciation was a real expense.

Jim Chanos: 我认为，对于那些传统的数据中心……我们的观点是，新的以GPU为中心的数据中心需要液体冷却，基本上需要把所有基础设施都拆掉重置。在这之前，这个生意的资本回报率就不高，现在变得更糟了。Equinix昨天在他们的分析师日上说，收入可能达不到人们的预期，但更不祥的是，资本支出将继续增加。这正是我们一直说的，这些不是像仓库那样你只管收租金就行了，它们实际上是运营性业务……但它们却像REITs一样交易，这就是机会所在……人们像处理REITs一样把折旧加回来，用所谓的FFO或AFFO（运营资金/调整后运营资金）这种现金流指标来估值，但事实上，与仓库不同……这里的资本支出是真实的，折旧是真实的费用。

Jim Chanos: So to give you an example with Equinix yesterday, they said our capex is now going to bump up to between four and five billion a year. The problem is their EBITDA this year is expected to be 4.5 billion. So all of that's going to go to capex, meaning they're going to have to basically borrow or issue equity to pay their interest in dividends. And that's just a definition of a bad business. And it's a business that's not growing very fast... So there's no growing their way out of this. And and so they're just really bad businesses trading at at just nosebleed valuations.

Jim Chanos: 举个Equinix昨天的例子，他们说，我们的资本支出现在将增加到每年40到50亿美元。问题是，他们今年的EBITDA（税息折旧及摊销前利润）预计是45亿美元。所以，所有的利润都将用于资本支出，这意味着他们基本上将不得不借款或发行股票来支付利息和股息。这恰恰就是一个糟糕生意的定义。而且这是一个增长非常缓慢的业务……所以他们无法通过增长来摆脱困境。因此，这些就是估值高得离谱的糟糕生意。

Carvana：光鲜财报下的次贷风险

Tracy Alloway: On the topic of idiosyncratic opportunities, I got to ask about Carvana... I thought, they're not going to have a future if they are this bad at it. And yet the stock is up.

Tracy Alloway: 关于个股机会，我得问问Carvana……我当时想，如果他们做得这么差，他们是不会有未来的。然而，它的股票却上涨了。

Jim Chanos: It's done insanely well. The reason it's interesting is that if you go through the numbers they are making more than 100% of their pre-tax profit from gain on sale of loans, subprime loans, and gain on sale of equity stakes in other companies. And you X those two out, they're losing money... And this is a company that is being valued again as a secular growth stock that saw its used car revenues drop 30% between 2022 and 2023... And then what people are really missing is that what's happening in subprime auto securizations right now and you can track it on your Bloomberg terminal. Delinquencies are starting to skyrocket.

Jim Chanos: 它表现得异常好。它之所以有趣，是因为如果你仔细看财报，他们超过100%的税前利润来自于出售贷款（次级贷款）的收益，以及出售其他公司股权的收益。如果你把这两项剔除，他们是亏钱的……而这家公司再次被当作一只长期成长股来估值，但它的二手车收入在2022年到2023年间下降了30%……然后，人们真正忽略的是汽车次贷证券化市场正在发生的事情，你可以在你的彭博终端上追踪到，违约率正在飙升。

Jim Chanos: A huge amount of their profits comes from selling, you know, generating paper from customers and then selling it into the open market... But what really got us interested again recently was the vast amount of insider selling that has just started in May and June in the company. If you go look at the insider selling in the company, it is just now a torrent of everybody selling like pretty much every day. And I we just don't think that's a good sign given what's happening in the subprime securization market.

Jim Chanos: 他们巨额的利润来自于出售从客户那里生成的金融票据……但最近真正再次引起我们兴趣的是，公司内部在五月和六月刚刚开始的大量内部人士抛售。如果你去查看公司的内部人士交易，现在简直就是一股洪流，几乎每天都有人在卖。考虑到次贷证券化市场正在发生的情况，我们认为这不是一个好兆头。

对私募股权和AI未来的思考

私募股权：黄金时代结束？

Joe Weisenthal: One area of the financial ecosystem that you've been cynical about for a long time is sort of private equity and a lot of the private assets... how long can that go on where it's like people are not getting cash out before it becomes a real problem?

Joe Weisenthal: 你长期以来一直持怀疑态度的金融生态系统的一个领域是私募股权和许多私人资产……这种情况，即投资者拿不到现金回报，还能持续多久才成为一个真正的问题？

Jim Chanos: I'm really beginning to wonder private equity was considered a panacea for nonprofits and and foundations, endowments, because basically, as my friend Cliff Asness said, it was volatility laundering, if you will, because no one ever showed you a big down quarter. But now we're getting to the point where a lot of these funds are really mature and the actual returns themselves are not going to be mid-teens with low volatility. They're going to be high single digits, low double digits. And we can look at the S&P and say, okay, you know, I'm doing better in that and I'm liquid and I'm not paying fees. And so I suspect that private equity and ultimately private credit are going to be where hedge funds found themselves 10 to 15 years ago having to justify their existence... I just think its golden days are are over where it was just a free lunch of mid-teen returns with no volatility.

Jim Chanos: 我真的开始怀疑，私募股权曾被非营利组织、基金会和捐赠基金视为灵丹妙药，因为基本上，就像我的朋友克里夫·阿斯内斯（Cliff Asness）所说，这是一种“波动性洗白”，因为从来没有人给你看一个大幅下跌的季度。但现在我们到了一个节点，很多这些基金已经非常成熟，实际的回报率不会是低波动的百分之十几了，而是高个位数或低两位数。我们可以看看标普500指数然后说，好吧，我在指数上的表现更好，而且流动性好，还不用支付费用。所以我怀疑，私募股权和最终的私人信贷，将会走到对冲基金在10到15年前的位置，即在经历了一段辉煌后，不得不开始为自己的存在辩护……我只是认为它的黄金时代已经结束了，那种百分之十几的回报率且没有波动的免费午餐已经没有了。

AI会取代会计师吗？

Joe Weisenthal: People who are knowledgeable about accounting just I don't know they seem to be have more interesting things to say than a lot of other people. Will AI be able to do accounting some of these sort of understandings of... is this coming for the accounting profession?

Joe Weisenthal: 那些精通会计的人似乎总比其他人有更有趣的话要说。AI能做会计工作吗？比如理解资本化支出之类的……会计这个行业会被AI颠覆吗？

Jim Chanos: That's a good question. I think that AI that that we've seen and used is getting better and better pulling numbers together and making sense of them. It's not quite there yet when I've done it I find lots and lots of errors not so much in the numbers themselves but the implications of the numbers the AI is still not getting that great but it's going to... And there's going to be a raft of them post AI and people are already kind of starting to think that through. But there will be industries that are collecting what I call agency rents that will suddenly not be able to collect those agency rents.

Jim Chanos: 这是个好问题。我认为我们看到和使用过的AI在整合数字并理解它们方面正变得越来越好。但它还没完全到位，我用的时候发现很多错误，不是数字本身，而是数字背后的含义，AI在这方面还做得不够好，但它最终会做到的……AI之后会有一大批行业受到影响，人们已经开始思考这个问题了。会有一些行业，我称之为收取“代理租金”（agency rents：指利用信息不对称或中介地位获取的超额利润）的，它们将突然无法再收取这些租金了。

关于做空的时机与催化剂

Tracy Alloway: So, one of the things I always wanted to ask you was how you think about, I guess, the time frames of some of your short bets because it seems to me like, you know, we can sit here and talk about how crazy cap rates are for office buildings in New York and subprime loans and Carvana and how stupid Bitcoin treasury companies are... And yet, you know, it the key to all of this, to making the money on it, is actually calling what the catalyst is going to be and when the stock eventually falls.

Tracy Alloway: 我一直想问你的一个问题是，你如何看待你一些空头押注的时间框架？因为在我看来，我们可以坐在这里谈论纽约写字楼的资本化率有多疯狂，次级贷款和Carvana有多危险，比特币金库公司有多愚蠢……然而，这一切的关键，要想从中赚钱，实际上是要预测催化剂会是什么，以及股票最终何时会下跌。

Jim Chanos: Yeah. I've after 40 years, I've kind of figured out that the catalysts are really evident pretty much in hindsight. That if if the catalysts were that obvious, it would be priced into the stock. And so, you can look for signposts along the world, but but they're just that. Now, there's some that are better than others. you know, a massive increase in insider selling and executives leaving has always been a good one for the most part... I always like say, you know, only short the stocks that go down. If they don't go down, don't short them. And it's hard. And it's why being hedged pretty much systematically to us made a lot of sense for the last 30 years.

Jim Chanos: 是的。40年后，我算是明白了，催化剂这东西，基本上都是事后才看得清楚。如果催化剂那么明显，它早就反映在股价里了。所以，你可以沿途寻找一些路标，但它们也仅仅是路标。当然，有些路标比另一些好。比如，内部人士大量抛售和高管离职，通常都是个好信号……我总喜欢说，只做空那些会下跌的股票。如果它们不跌，就别做空。这很难，这也是为什么在过去30年里，系统性地进行对冲对我们来说非常有意义。

对特斯拉的看法

Tracy Alloway: Speaking of executive departures, I think there was another one today at Tesla... Do you have a Tesla thought of the day?

Tracy Alloway: 说到高管离职，我想今天特斯拉又有一个……你对特斯拉今天有什么看法吗？

Jim Chanos: Nobody cares. Nobody cares. That's my thought. Nobody cares. Yeah. You could see Elon, you know, robbing a Brinks truck with a mask on, whatever. Oh, that's Elon. You know, I'm sure they're going to have a new business of robbing Brinks trucks and, you know, we'll put a trillion valuation on. I I've given up trying to figure out what people think about about executive departures at that company. I mean their car sales are plummeting, their cash flow is plummeting, you know, all the metrics that you would look as security analysts, but it's a unique animal where people will say, "Oh, well, of course, yes, but you know, Rosie the robot's going to serve me my breakfast and it's going to have Tesla trademark on it, so you know, it's worth a trillion dollars."

Jim Chanos: 没人在乎。没人在乎。这就是我的看法。没人在乎。是的。你可以看到埃隆蒙着面具去抢运钞车，然后大家会说，“哦，那是埃隆嘛。”你知道，我敢肯定他们会搞一个抢运钞车的新业务，然后我们再给它一个万亿美元的估值。我已经放弃去搞懂人们对那家公司高管离职的看法了。我的意思是，他们的汽车销量在暴跌，现金流在暴跌，所有你作为证券分析师会看的指标都在下滑，但它就是个独特的物种，人们会说：“哦，是的，当然，但是你知道，机器人罗西会给我端早餐，而且上面会有特斯拉的商标，所以它值一万亿美元。”

Jim Chanos, thank you so much. Always a thrill to chat with you.

Jim Chanos, 非常感谢。与你聊天总是那么激动人心。

Jim Chanos: Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Jim Chanos: 谢谢你们。