IL46: The Business Model Trap: Why Short Ideas Start in the Real World ft. Mark Roberts
Top Traders Unplugged
On-the-Ground Field Research Importance
Mark stresses interviewing customers, competitors, and using fieldwork to verify market size and demand.
In today’s episode we talk to Mark Roberts, founder of Off Wall Street, a legendary provider of short selling research to hedge funds. Seven months before Enron became the biggest bankruptcy in US corporate history, Off Wall Street published a report recommending the shares be sold. The success of this call made Mark and Off Wall Street synonymous with original and rigorous research. We talk to Mark about his unusual personal background, how being a hippie in Berkeley in the 1960s prepared him for identifying overvalued companies two decades later. He explains why questionable accounting and high valuations are the “symptoms, not the disease” and compares today’s markets with those of the Dotcom era. His new book, Off Wall Street How To Win At Short Selling By Betting Against The Crowd was just released in February 2026.
-----
50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE
-----
Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.
IT’s TRUE ? – most CIO’s read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.
And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.
Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.
Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.com
And please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.
Follow Kevin on SubStack & read his Book.
Follow Mark on LinkedIn and read his book.
Episode TimeStamps:
01:41 - Introducing Mark Roberts, Off Wall Street, Enron, and the book
03:35 - An unconventional path: French literature, skepticism, and early life choices
07:40 - The first “short sale”: selling a failing steel business and learning risk firsthand
11:10 - Fidelity, Peter Lynch, and the origins of independent short research
16:48 - Founding Off Wall Street and the first major short thesis (TCBY)
27:34 - How short ideas are built, tested, and abandoned without sunk-cost bias
30:56 - Business models vs accounting: why accounting issues are symptoms, not causes
40:11 - Timing, crowd psychology, and surviving being early on a short
47:08 - Why short selling is dangerous for individuals and crowded trades fail
52:44 - Markets today vs the dot-com era, passive flows, and portfolio construction
Copyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved
----
PLUS: Whenever you're ready... here are 3 ways I can help you in your investment Journey:
1. eBooks that cover key topics that you need to know about
In my eBooks, I put together some key discoveries and things I have learnt during the more than 3 decades I have worked in the Trend Following industry, which I hope you will find useful. Click Here
2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score
One of the things I’m really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here
3. Other Resources that can help you
And if you are hungry for more useful resources from the trend following world...check out some precious resources that I have found over the years to be really valuable. Click Here
The AI-powered Podcast Player
