Jeffrey Gundlach is back on stage at Lincoln Center again, speaking at the 23rd annual Sohn Investment Conference. As he has done in the past, he's framing his talk with modern art, titling it "Investment Cubism 2018."

So far, Gundlach has hearkened back to a famous early 20th century trader, Jesse Livermore, when making a variety of critiques against Facebook. Instead of social media, Gundlach quips that we should call Facebook "I-Spy Media," "Election Media," "Opt-Out Media," or "Bullying Media." Gundlach also suggests that the federal government might go after Facebook as a monopoly.

Sohn attendees cracked up at Gundlach's joke about trading.

"The definition of a long-term investor," Gundlach said, "is a trader who is underwater."

Gundlach, famous for his love of modern art, was introduced by Amy Capellazzo, chairman of the fine arts division of Sotheby's, reminded Sohn attendees of Gundlach's support of the Buffalo art museum and of his help recovering his stolen art six years ago.

Gundlach, CEO of Los Angles-based DoubleLine Capital [profile], has 20 minutes to present one investment idea to the packed Sohn crowd (estimated at more than 3,000 people) at David Geffen Hall in New York City. In past years, Gundlach's Sohn topics (always illuminated with discussions of artwork) have included: the myth of passive investing; a prediction that Trump would win the 2016 presidential election; and shorting a homebuilders ETF.

Other investing gurus (mostly hedge fundsters) speaking today at the Sohn conference include: David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital; Scott Ferguson, managing partner and PM at Sachem Head Capital Management; Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark; Glen Kacher, founder and CIO of Light Street Capital; John Khoury, founder and managing partner of Long Pond Capital; Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital; John Pfeffer, partner at Pfeffer Capital; Li Ran, CIO of Half Sky Capital; Josh Resnick, founder and managing partner at Jericho Capital Asset Management; Larry Robbins, founder, PM and CEO at Glenview Capital Management; and Seth Stephens Davidowitz, Google alumnus and visiting Wharton lecturer. Also on the agenda are Douglas Hirsch and Dan Nir, co-founders and board members of the Sohn Conference Foundation and co-chairs of the conference itself. The main conference was preceded this morning by the foundation's 2018 Next Wave Sohn conference featuring remarks from half a dozen rising star PMs.

The foundation, created in memory of the late Ira Sohn (a Wall Street trader who died of cancer 25 years ago at age 29), has raised more than $85 million to fight childhood cancer and to help its victims and survivors, and now hosts events in 11 countries. Two famous childhood cancer survivors, winter Olympians Bryan Fletcher (a Nordic combined skiier) and Gavin Shamis (a luger), will make a special appearance this afternoon at the conference. Nate Solder, the new left tackle for the New York Giants and the father of a son struggling with cancer, made a video appearance at the conference earlier this afternoon.

This year the foundation launched an online fantasy investing game, the Ira Sohn Stock Game, through which budding investors put $1 million in fake money to work from today through February 8, 2019. The cost to play is a $100 donation to the foundation, and the winner of the game will receive two free tickets to the 2019 Sohn conference. Evan Sohn, vice president of the foundation and brother of the conference's namesake, describes the game as a great way to get even more people involved and to "drive money ... to help fight pediatric cancer."

Meanwhile, Gundlach is sticking around in the Big Apple for a DoubleLine investor event tomorrow at the Metropolitan Club. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE