Tiger trader's Wall St insights

The company was brought under by a holding in one agro-thermal company and partly by the onset of the financial crisis.

"It was not that we didn't see a mortgage crisis coming. It was the extent of it that we didn't foresee. The tech bubble at the turn of the century had been isolated but this was not," she says.

Since the financial crisis the whole world of hedge funds and short selling of stocks has come under scrutiny and often attack.

Li, however, defends the practice of selling stocks in the hope of buying them back at a lower price since she says it exposes the bad apples.

"By shorting a company I am expressing a negative view that either a business is fundamentally flawed or is over-hyped. Bad businesses deserve to go under," she says.

 Li, who made her first million dollars by the age of 30, says she has no qualms about the returns people make on Wall Street.

"I don't feel bad about any money I have made. People talk about the big years. They don't talk about the money-losing years," she says.

"There have been periods when I have been physically unhealthy. At one time I was getting up at 2 or 3 am in the morning just to check emails to make sure there was no new information I needed to know before starting my actual day at 5:30 am."

Despite her personal wealth, she says she is not at all materialistic. "I fly business class but I wouldn't die if I didn't. I know where I come from. My needs are pretty basic. I am not a foodie and I don't own a Hermes bag. They are just bought by wives who want to do serious damage to a husband's credit card," she laughs.

Li remains fascinated by stocks and says the biggest lesson investors need to learn is that they are not investing in brands but actual companies.

"People buy Facebook and Apple because they are familiar with the products and they think therefore they know the stock. That is a fundamental mistake because stocks are sometimes different from the company or its products.

"I am actually quiet bearish on Apple because its growth in China is decelerating. All the low hanging fruit is gone."With that she was off to her next meeting.

"I find it more difficult to conduct business in China. In New York starting at 7 am and using the subway I can fit in up to seven meetings in the day. Here in Beijing with the traffic, I can do only three or four, if I am lucky."

Bio

Junheng Li

Author of Tiger Woman on Wall Street and founder and head of research, JL Warren Capital, the New York-based equity research firm specializing in China

Education:

1996-2000: BA, summa cum laude, economics and mathematics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont

2002-04: MBA, finance, Columbia Business School, New York

Career:

2000-01: Investment banking analyst, Credit Suisse First Boston, New York

2001-02: Analyst, International Small-Mid Capitalization Group, Franklin Templeton Fiduciary Trust Co, New York

2005-08: Senior analyst, long/short equity, Aurarian Capital Management

From 2009: Founder and equity analyst, JL Warren Capital LLC, New York

Favorites:

Book: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Film: To Live (1994, directed by Zhang Yimou)

Food: Pan-seared pork bun ("A Shanghainese favorite that you eat with vinegar. My father bought it for me if I did well at school.")

Hobbies and interests: Yoga and surfing