Billionaire hedge fund manager and shareholder activist Carl Icahn sat down for a telephone interview with Reuters’ Jennifer Ablan on Thursday, July 10th. Icahn, who turned 78 in February, touched on a number of topics in the interview, but his main message was to be cautious on U.S. equities markets in the near future.
Carl Icahn on U.S. stock markets
Although he has profited handsomely on the stock market run up of the last couple of years, Icahn is not a perma-bull. In the interview, he warns investors that markets don’t go up forever. “In my mind, it is time to be cautious about the U.S. stock markets,” Icahn said. “While we are having a great year, I am being very selective about the companies I purchase.”
Carl Icahn on Family Dollar
Icahn has morphed from an old-fashioned corporate raider in the 1990s to a politically correct shareholder activist in the 21st century. Over the last couple of years, he has been involved in making deals and pressing for shareholder value in companies such as Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY).