The stances below are c8alpha's editorial distillation of Carson Block's public commentary — television, podcasts, and interviews — compiled by automated transcript analysis and dated to the episode they came from. They may lag the speaker's current view and may contain extraction errors. Text in quotation marks is verbatim from the episode; everything else is our paraphrase. Carson Block is not affiliated with c8alpha and has not endorsed this page. Nothing here is investment advice.
Raw direction-aware returns on public statements — long calls credited when the price rose, shorts when it fell, shorts capped at −100% — in a rising market this mostly measures who was long, not who has skill. Returns run from the stance date; calls are rarely closed publicly, so fixed 90-day / 180-day / 1-year horizons are used. A horizon shows only once it has fully matured, and only at 5+ scored stances. “% correct” is the share of those scored calls whose direction-aware return was positive at the horizon — in a rising market a bullish call is correct by default, so read it beside the market, not alone.
Every tracked call with at least one matured horizon: the rows behind the Returns
line above. A dash is a horizon that has not matured yet.
2026-07-17
short Investment Grade Credit / short High Yield
basket
Meb Faber · video
Second-order AI disruption effect — as knowledge-worker unemployment drives aggregate demand lower and credit quality deteriorates, record-tight corporate bond spreads revert violently, hitting bond ETFs hardest at the ETF/underlying liquidity dislocation…
“bond ETFs, LQD, HYG, I'd put in the second-order effects. So, put spreads there”
90d +2.1%
Why the Last Short Seller Is Preparing Now | Carson Block Explains
2026-07-17
Big Tech
bearish
Meb Faber · video
AI displacing ~15% of US knowledge workers within 3 years will drain 401(k) inflows that have been the structural bid for the index's largest constituents, reversing the flywheel and causing the biggest stocks to unwind hard; implemented via capped-risk put…
“the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 in particular, the largest stocks...those will unwind hard”
90d -4.8%
Why the Last Short Seller Is Preparing Now | Carson Block Explains
2026-07-17
SPX
bullish
Meb Faber · video
Systematic momentum within the S&P 500 has been the dominant source of returns post-GFC; skeptics who ignore it underperform — Block's firm built and deployed a quantitative momentum strategy in October 2024 that compounded over 70% gross
“optimists live in bigger houses...are you living in the real world or you going to die that fiery death on Twitter”
90d +4.1%
Why the Last Short Seller Is Preparing Now | Carson Block Explains
2026-07-17
Gold Miners
bullish
Meb Faber · video
Decades of talent under-allocation to mining creates persistent mispricing in junior miners — venture-scale returns are available with far more data than true venture investing; partnered with a career mining investor based in Toronto to exploit the…
“in junior mining you can make venture type returns, but you have a lot more data upon which to base your investing decisions”
90d +22.0%
Why the Last Short Seller Is Preparing Now | Carson Block Explains
2026-07-17
China Equities
bearish
Meb Faber · video
China is uninvestable due to the combination of suppressed information quality (MSS removes reporters and researchers), arbitrary policy risk that can zero out entire industries overnight, and VIE structures under which foreign investors own no actual…
“you get no good information, no good quality information, maximal policy capriciousness”
90d -0.4%
Why the Last Short Seller Is Preparing Now | Carson Block Explains
2025-05-09
ELF
bearish
The Compound · video
Customs import data showed ELF Beauty's inbound shipments fell sharply in a way irreconcilable with reported cost of sales, indicating material misstatements in inventory, cost of sales, and revenue; the company's subsequent large guidance cut was treated as…
“their imports fell significantly and couldn't be reconciled with what they were reporting as cost of sales”
90d -49.5% · 180d -76.3% · 1y +17.4%
The Soul of a Short-Seller | TCAF 191
2025-05-09
APP
bearish
The Compound · video
AppLovin systematically builds persistent identifier graphs that track users across sites in violation of platform terms of service (Google et al.) and privacy law, and the CEO/CTO publicly denied doing so despite the behavior continuing, meaning platform…
“the CEO and CTO lied...they're still using these persistent identity graphs”
90d -33.1% · 180d -87.8% · 1y -45.6%
The Soul of a Short-Seller | TCAF 191
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