Investor Steve Eisman said he’s betting against U.K. banks amid a testy Brexit negotiation.
The prominent hedge-fund manager and investor who garnered prominence on Wall Street for his bets against dicey mortgage products engineered by some of the world’s biggest banks, says uncertainty about the outcome surrounding Britain’s planned divorce from the European Union is underpinning his recent bearish bank bets.
Speaking to BBC radio on Tuesday, Eisman said “the path of least resistance” is a hard Brexit, or a British split from Europe’s trade bloc without a negotiated agreement—a scenario viewed as a potentially the most calamitous for global markets.
To be sure, Eisman believes that is nearly impossible for anyone to know the implications of Brexit from an economic standpoint.
“I don’t think anybody has any idea what the economic impact of Brexit will be. I don’t, you don’t and all the people who have prognosticated about it, they certainly don’t,” he told the BBC.
“The only thing that I know for sure is that the people who invest in the U.K., those investors, believe strongly that the ramifications of a hard Brexit are very bad and they believe that a recession will take place in the U.K. and that would clearly be negative for banks of the U.K.,” he explained.
Eisman didn’t specify the U.K. banks he was placing short bets against but said uncertainty swirling around the country had emboldened his thesis on the matter.
The hedge-fund manager, who now runs money for Neuberger Berman Group, garnered fame after his story of subprime mortgage glory was told in Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short,” where he wagered correctly that arcane mortgage securities would eventually rock the financial system to its very core.
Eisman is currently in the U.K.
His comments come after a historic defeat for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government in a parliamentary vote Tuesday on her proposal for the terms of the country’s departure from the EU, which is scheduled for March 29. The plan was defeated overwhelmingly by a margin of 432-202 in the House of Commons, with May’s government facing a vote of no confidence later Wednesday.
Read: After historic Brexit defeat — what’s next?
Brexit Brief: U.K. government faces no confidence vote after crushing Brexit defeat
So far, markets have shaken off the U.K. vote results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.49% the S&P 500 SPX, +0.22% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.12% were all trading solidly higher on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 UKX, -0.47% was showing a slight decline while the British pound GBPUSD, -0.0855% was ticking slightly higher against the U.S. dollar.
Meanwhile, shares of U.K. banks were higher including shares of Lloyds Banking Group PLC LLOY, +1.06% Barclays PLC BARC, +1.45% and those for HSBC Holdings PLC HSBA, +0.84%
The investor also said he had a list of some 30 stocks on his “U.K. screen” that he would short if Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were to emerge as U.K. Prime Minister.
Listen to the complete Eisman BBC interview here around the 2:44 mark.
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