Bill Martin - On The Short Side, Position Sizing Is The Biggest Driver Of Success | #170

In episode 170, we welcome our guest, Bill Martin. Bill and Meb start the conversation by diving into Bill’s early entrepreneurial experience running Ragingbull.com. He discusses the business, raising capital, and ultimately selling the business. After Ragingbull.com, he started a research business and InsiderScores before ultimately launching Raging Capital in 2006.

Meb asks Bill to get into Raging Capital. Bill offers that the long side is fairly concentrated, focused on the long-term and thinking strategically about the businesses. The short side is where he and his team focus on a diverse basket of businesses they consider overvalued with fundamentally challenged business models. Bill describes the nuances involved in position sizing on the short-side, and even illustrates with an example of Insys Therapeutics.

Next, Bill covers where he’s seeing opportunity in the world. He talks about a theme with MLPs, companies with exposure to Puerto Rico, and building products.

Meb then chats with Bill about his thoughts on China. Bill walks through his thinking on China broadly, and that the network he’s building in China is beneficial to investments he’s making in the portfolio.

As the conversation winds down, Bill walks through mechanics of short selling, and some names and themes he and his team are working on, including a number of firms in the public storage space, and some auto-related companies.

All this and more in episode 170, including Bill’s most memorable investment.