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Famed value investor David Einhorn says he’s betting on CNH Industrial.
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The stock is trading cheap, but has upside as an agricultural boom mounts, he said.
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Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital is also increasing inflation bets after Donald Trump’s election.
Famed hedge fund investor David Einhorn isn’t one to shy away from market rejects — even if the stock in question was down more than 17% year-to-date as of Wednesday.
The Greenlight Capital founder disclosed that he has built a position in CNH Industrial, a global firm that sells agricultural equipment.
“It’s exactly the kind of situation that absolutely nobody cares about right now because it’s cheap, and the news over the next period of time probably isn’t going to be very good,” the billionaire manager said during CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference on Wednesday.
The value stock is part of Einhorn’s strategy to snap up overlooked companies in today’s expensive market.
“There are things that are truly despised and hated and cheap on an absolute basis that I think makes sense to own,” he said.
CNH’s stock does appear to be cheap, as company shares have been weighed down by an agricultural down-cycle.
But this period won’t last, Einhorn said, anticipating the stock to rally over the medium term.
“This year, the ag equipment universe is probably 20% below its average at the end of the whole recycle. And sometime three or four years from now, it’ll probably be 20% above,” he said. “Just the nature of how these businesses work.”
Though this timeline may disappoint investors looking for a quick profit, Einhorn noted a few reasons to buy the stock now. CNH has little leverage and is actively buying back shares. Given that its an attractive dividend-payer, investors can score a yield of as much as 4%, he said.
CNH jumped after Einhorn’s comments, climbing 6.27% to $10.68 per share as of 9:52 a.m. ET on Thursday.
During the conference, the Greenlight manager also cited that his firm has increased bets tied to inflation after Donald Trump’s election win last week.
Though Einhorn doesn’t expect price growth to rebound toward pandemic-era highs, he cited that the incoming administration appears set on expansionary policies that could push inflation to a 3.5%-4.5% range next year.
Otherwise, Einhorn’s leading concern has been the stock market’s rising expensiveness. In the hedge fund’s quarterly letter published last month, he warned that equities were the most overvalued since the firm’s founding in 1996.
