Steve Eisman, A Big Short, Gives His Current Views on the Economy and the Stock Market

Steve Eisman is one of the people given credit for seeing the mortgage/housing crisis coming and benefiting from the collapse. He’s been quiet the last few years. But this post describes his latest speech, in which he describes what he thinks is likely to be a good short position and a possible source of a new financial crisis. He touches on a range of other assets as well.

By that measure, neither subprime auto loans nor student loans are going to be the next mortgage crisis. Eisman seems more concerned about Europe, where banks are still much more highly leveraged than in the U.S., and where regulators in peripheral countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal have been slow to force them to recognize losses.

But while the big picture may not be so bad right now, Eisman said he is not a big believer in marketplace lending. “Silicon Valley is clueless,” he says.

“If you buy a book on Amazon, that’s the end of the relationship.”  Whereas, if you make a mortgage, “that’s the beginning of the transaction.” And there are only two business models. “The first is to originate the loan and hold it, which means you’re a bank. That’s a low margin business. The second is to originate a loan and sell it, and who are they going to sell it to? You [Wall Street]. And you are fickle.”