Carl Icahn admits he got bearish bet that cost $9bn wrong

Carl Icahn has admitted he was wrong to make a huge bet that the market would crash after the ill-fated trade cost his firm nearly $9bn over roughly six years.

According to a Financial Times analysis, the prominent activist investor lost about $1.8bn in 2017 on hedging positions that would have paid out if asset prices had tumbled before losing a further $7bn between 2018 and the first quarter of this year.