'Hell is coming': how Bill Ackman's TV interview tanked the markets and made him $2.6bn
US hedge fund manager's doom-laden TV appearance about coronavirus crisis sparked frenzied selling
"Hell is coming," the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman told millions of Americans in a 28-minute near-hysterical TV interview 10 days ago. He said the US was underestimating the severity of the coronavirus crisis. It would kill millions of people and devastate the global economy, he said.
At the same time Ackman, a well-known Harvard-educated hedge fund manager, had quietly placed a bet that stock markets would tank. Those bets made his hedge fund $2.6bn (2.2bn) - a near-10,000% return on his $27m stake.
Ackman just halted the market.
Mr. President, the only answer is to shut down the country for the next 30 days and close the borders. Tell all Americans that you are putting us on an extended Spring Break at home with family. Keep only essential services open. The government pays wages until we reopen.
28 October 1929The original Black Monday. The Dow plunged 13%, then a record, as the Great Wall Street Crash ended the bull market of the 1920s.
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