The star investor in 'The Big Short' is betting against Canadian banks

Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount

Eisman was played by Steve Carell in the movie version of 'The Big Short."

• Steve Eisman, the hedge fund manager famous for betting against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 crash, is sounding the alarm on the Canadian housing market.
• Eisman, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, was played by Steve Carell in the movie The Big Short" and is now targeting Canadian banks.
• Bets against Canadian banks have risen 19% since the start of the year to positions worth $12.3 billion, according to the FT, which cited S3 Partners.

Steve Eisman, the hedge-fund manager famous for betting against the US housing market ahead of the 2008 crash, is sounding the alarm on the Canadian market.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Eisman said: "I'm calling for a simple normalization of credit that hasn't happened in 20 years." He didn't indicate the size of his positions or the names of the banks he was targeting.

Eisman, a central figure in the book "The Big Short" and the subsequent film, has joined a swathe of investors betting against the Canadian economy with expectations that banking stocks will be hit if the housing market struggles. Eisman has also said he is shorting two UK banks in anticipation that Britain falls out of the European Union without securing an exit deal.

Eisman was keen to stress to the FT that the current situation was not as cataclysmic as 2008. "This is not 'The Big Short: Canada' - I'm not calling for a housing collapse," he said.

Short sellers have targeted banks such as TD Bank and Royal Bank of Canada in recent months, with property prices now outstripping wages in Canada following years of low interest rates and lax foreign ownership rules, the FT said.

Now the Canadian economy is starting to falter with Eisman among those taking positions as a result of a recent slump in the housing sector after years of booming growth. Luxury home sales dropped in key markets like Vancouver and Toronto at the start of 2019, according to data from Sotheby's International Realty Canada.

Bets against Canadian banks have risen 19% since the start of the year to positions worth $12.3 billion, the FT said, citing research firm S3 Partners.

Toronto's TD Bank is the biggest target for short sellers having seen bets against its stock rise to $3 billion since January - up 17%. Similarly, bets against CIBC have risen 26% to $2.3 billion and short positions in Bank of Montreal are up 37% to $1.3 billion, S3 Partners told the FT.