James Chanos, the famous short seller, likes Cisco stock, but he’s not so enthusiastic about Greece and China.
“Cisco’s obviously on the cutting edge of this stuff (communications technology),” says Chanos, one of the first to spot Enron’s woes.
“They were early on in figuring out that the consumer was going to drive the technology upgrades in this cycle to a great extent," he told CNBC.
"To (CEO John) Chambers’ credit, they saw this ahead of the curve better than most, so I think they’re probably the best positioned.”
Cisco recently reported that its profit rose 23 percent to $1.85 billion in the quarter ended Jan. 23, up from $1.5 billion a year earlier.
As for Greece, many investors worry that it will default on its sovereign debt.
“Greece has long been a society of many chiefs and no Indians,” Chanos said.
“They’ve got some real problems that they don’t even want to fess up to themselves. Whether the EU (European Union) does anything to help them out, I don’t know.”
On the China front, Chanos sees a bubble.
“The bubble that’s going on in commercial and residential construction, infrastructure construction and manufacturing construction is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
Economist Andy Xie says that fiscal and monetary tightening steps by China’s government will soon end the real estate bubble.
“It’s very difficult to see this demand continuing,” he told Bloomberg.
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