Jim Chanos on Daily Ticker: Stay Away From U.S. Tech Firms

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Here is an interview of Jim Chanos by Lauren Lyster from the Wine Country Conference. Chanos says Stay Away From U.S. Tech Firms

The Daily Ticker’s Lauren Lyster sat down with Chanos, also president and managing partner of Kynikos Associates, at the 2013 Wine Country Conference in support of Les Turner ALS Foundation last week. Of course we asked him: “What are your biggest shorts?”

His response? U.S. technology.

“I’ve been a big bear for the last year and a half, two years, in the P.C. space,” Chanos says. “I think that we are seeing a secular headwind in that business as more and more people go to mobility and tablets and the cloud. The P.C.-centric space is going to increasingly see negative surprises.”

Chanos cites Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Dell (DELL) for problems with their accounting practices.

“They spend very little on R&D and yet the companies that everyone wants to compare them to spend dramatically more on R&D thus, hurting their profitability,” he notes.

Even though Dell and HP have been starting to make huge acquisitions to gain a competitive advantage, they’re doing a “very bad job” at it, Chanos argues.

“I am completely mystified as to what the buyout groups at Dell are seeing here because the business from a cash flow point of view, from an accounting point of view, is deteriorating right before your eyes and yet there seems to be a number of players who think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Chanos says.

Chanos offers a few pointers for the average retail investor including: don’t try to trade like a hedge fund.

“The deck is stacked against retail investors selling short on their own. I don’t think it is generally a good policy,” he says. “Just sell down your stocks to sleep at night.”

Click on the link at the top to see the complete video interview with Chanos.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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Jim Chanos on Daily Ticker: Stay Away From U.S. Tech Firms

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

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A few years ago, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer informed hundreds of tech workers at its Connecticut R&D facilities that they’d soon be laid off. Before getting their final paychecks, however, they’d need to train their replacements: guest workers from India who’d come to the United States on H-1B visas. “It’s a very, very stressful work environment,” one soon-to-be-axed worker told Connecticut’s The Day newspaper. “I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks.”

Established in 1990, the federal H-1B visa program allows employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers each year to fill jobs that require “highly specialized knowledge.” The Senate’s bipartisan Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, or “I-Squared Act,” would increase that cap to as many as 300,000 foreign workers. “The smartest, hardest-working, most talented people on this planet, we should want them to come here,” Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said upon introducing the bill last month. “I, for one, have no fear that this country is going to be overrun by Ph.D.s.”

To be sure, America’s tech economy has long depended on foreign-born workers. “Immigrants have founded 40 percent of companies in the tech sector that were financed by venture capital and went on to become public in the U.S., among them Yahoo, eBay, Intel, and Google,” writes Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior VP of “people operations,” which, along with other tech giants such as HP and Microsoft, strongly supports a big increase in H-1B visas. “In 2012, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $ 63 billion in sales.”

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

Tweet

A few years ago, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer informed hundreds of tech workers at its Connecticut R&D facilities that they’d soon be laid off. Before getting their final paychecks, however, they’d need to train their replacements: guest workers from India who’d come to the United States on H-1B visas. “It’s a very, very stressful work environment,” one soon-to-be-axed worker told Connecticut’s The Day newspaper. “I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks.”

Established in 1990, the federal H-1B visa program allows employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers each year to fill jobs that require “highly specialized knowledge.” The Senate’s bipartisan Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, or “I-Squared Act,” would increase that cap to as many as 300,000 foreign workers. “The smartest, hardest-working, most talented people on this planet, we should want them to come here,” Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said upon introducing the bill last month. “I, for one, have no fear that this country is going to be overrun by Ph.D.s.”

To be sure, America’s tech economy has long depended on foreign-born workers. “Immigrants have founded 40 percent of companies in the tech sector that were financed by venture capital and went on to become public in the U.S., among them Yahoo, eBay, Intel, and Google,” writes Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior VP of “people operations,” which, along with other tech giants such as HP and Microsoft, strongly supports a big increase in H-1B visas. “In 2012, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $ 63 billion in sales.”

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers

Tweet

A few years ago, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer informed hundreds of tech workers at its Connecticut R&D facilities that they’d soon be laid off. Before getting their final paychecks, however, they’d need to train their replacements: guest workers from India who’d come to the United States on H-1B visas. “It’s a very, very stressful work environment,” one soon-to-be-axed worker told Connecticut’s The Day newspaper. “I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks.”

Established in 1990, the federal H-1B visa program allows employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers each year to fill jobs that require “highly specialized knowledge.” The Senate’s bipartisan Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, or “I-Squared Act,” would increase that cap to as many as 300,000 foreign workers. “The smartest, hardest-working, most talented people on this planet, we should want them to come here,” Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said upon introducing the bill last month. “I, for one, have no fear that this country is going to be overrun by Ph.D.s.”

To be sure, America’s tech economy has long depended on foreign-born workers. “Immigrants have founded 40 percent of companies in the tech sector that were financed by venture capital and went on to become public in the U.S., among them Yahoo, eBay, Intel, and Google,” writes Laszlo Bock, Google’s senior VP of “people operations,” which, along with other tech giants such as HP and Microsoft, strongly supports a big increase in H-1B visas. “In 2012, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $ 63 billion in sales.”

Continue Reading »

Politics | Mother Jones

How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers