APPLE INC. Icahn told CNBC in an interview that he still has a lot of money invested in the stock market and has taken measures to protect his portfolio.
"I've been putting on quite a bit of hedges," Icahn said, adding that he was shorting the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.SPX> stock index, which was down 1.77 percent.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average tumbled more than 300 points, or 1.78 percent.
In November Icahn said at a Reuters Summit the market could "easily have a big drop," a sentiment he reiterated on CNBC.
"I've been quite concerned for the last year or so, but we still have a hell of a lot of stocks in our portfolio, so ... but I have a lot of hedges on," Icahn said.
Asked about a possible stock market correction, Icahn said, "It's definitely coming."
Stocks had rallied steadily for months, underpinned by central bankers' easy money policy designed to stimulate growth. But "you can't keep an economy up just with the Fed," Icahn said. "The Fed alone can't do it."
Icahn was being interviewed with his son, Brett, and another portfolio manager, David Schechter, about their open letter to Apple Inc (>> Apple Inc.) urging the company to buy back shares.
Brett Icahn and Schechter said they still own shares of on-demand media company Netflix (>> Netflix, Inc.), another of their big and successful investments.
Icahn senior took a swipe at venture capitalist Marc Andreessen after eBay Inc (>> eBay Inc) last week decided to spin off PayPal. Icahn has contended that Andreessen, as a board member of eBay, had a conflict of interest when eBay sold off Skype and said "Andreessen has screwed more people than Casanova."
"I went after him hard for stealing Skype from eBay," Icahn said. "I am no fan of Andreessen," he added, noting his "high squeaky voice that only a dog can hear."
The two investors have a long history of calling each other names.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Richard Chang)
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Sam Forgione
