Andrew Left throws in the towel on his bearish call on a subprime lending stock that he now says is poised to rally

• Andrew Left has changed his tune on a subprime auto lender he had criticized.
• His firm recently published a report on Credit Acceptance Corp, which Left now says is mispriced.
• The famed short-seller is optimistic about its growth prospects as regulatory headwinds ease.

Andrew Left has correctly called some famous market blowups, but this week, he's reversed course on a stock and is turning bullish.

The short-seller wrote that he has turned bullish on Credit Acceptance Corporation, a subprime auto lender. His firm, Citron Research, published a report on the company, arguing that it has changed course, with the stock poised to gain.

According to Citron, the stock has a fair value of $714 a share, about 40% higher than current levels.

Citron has covered the stock for years, but, as Left noted in the report, the firm's view has been mostly negative. However, the shifting of multiple regulatory headwinds has led him to a new bullish outlook.

"February 13, 2026 — NYAG and CFPB resolved simultaneously," he wrote on X. "The discount that suppressed this multiple for 3 years is gone. The market hasn't noticed yet."

In the report, Left unpacked the controversy that has surrounded Credit Acceptance for years. The company is considered a subprime lender, a title that, for many, evokes images of the financial crisis.

Left acknowledged this, but defended the firm's position in the market.

"Credit Acceptance lends money to people with bad credit so they can buy a car and get to work," the report stated. "The customer has a choice. The customer needs transportation. CACC provides capital no one else will."

"CACC generates enormous cash," he stated. "It does not hide it, does not dress it up, and does not apologize for it. Judge the ethics however you like. The cash flow is real."

He also noted that the company caters to buyers who are struggling financially in the best of times. If the economy descends into a recession, it likely won't make things much worse for them.

"CACC has navigated every recession since 1992 — 2001, 2008, 2020 — without a fundamental impairment," Left added. "Bears have been calling the recession trade for three years. The business keeps printing cash."

Left has mostly been betting against leading tech companies recently. In the past few months, he's announced short positions in AI darling Palantir and, more recently, against memory storage producer SanDisk.