These Three Stocks Destroyed David Einhorn's 2015

It's no secret David Einhorn had a poor 2015. According to a new investor letter from Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, the hedge fund lost 20.2 percent in 2015, down 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter. The fund's annualized return since its 1996 inception is now 16.5 percent.

While Einhorn's letter discusses many things, let's key in on what he said about Netflix, Inc. NFLX and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, along with CONSOL Energy Inc. CNX and Micron Technology, Inc. MU.

Investors following Greenlight's biggest positions would have been better off inverting his picks. "We were short the top two performing stocks in the S&P 500 [Netflix and Amazon]...we were long two of the ten worst performing stocks in the S&P [Consol and Micron]," Einhorn wrote, remarking that one of his children suggested: "Dad, why don't you just short your longs and long your shorts?"

Magnitude Of Misses Another Problem

Outside of the fact that these picks went in the opposite direction, Einhorn also highlighted the size of the investments. Since 2002, Greenlight has had two years -- two in 2002, five in 2008, three in 2015 -- where more than one position cost the firm at least 3 percent of capital in a calendar year. The three major losers were Consol, Micron and Sunedison Inc SUNE.

Here's what Einhorn's year-to-date return would have looked like without those three losers:

Of note, Consol and Micron are in the green on Tuesday. Sunedison -- fresh off bearish commentary from Axiom's Gordon Johnson last week -- is down 8 percent on the day.