Michael Burry’s current holdings

[Saluki]

14 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

What evidence is there that Burry isn't still beating the market like a drum?

 

I don't think there is any evidence one way or another.  Every quarter his 13fs have massive churn, so anything is possible, even that he's day trading and what you see just happens to be what was held on the last day of the period. 

[ValueArb]

1 hour ago, Saluki said:

 

I don't think there is any evidence one way or another.  Every quarter his 13fs have massive churn, so anything is possible, even that he's day trading and what you see just happens to be what was held on the last day of the period. 

 

Right. I just tend to believe in inertia, that investors usually continue to do the same things that made them successful. Typically just a bit less successfully as their portfolios grow it makes it harder to outperform.

 

Burry is an interesting case because he fired his clients and went back to investing similar amounts as when he was outperforming by 28% per year in the years before the big short. So theoretically he might have been able to maintain that performance, and there are some investments we know were very successful (Gamestop) as per the Burry of old. But maybe the big short caused style drift and he's spent too much time on macro and options bets and isn't the same guy. 

[bizaro86]

19 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

What evidence is there that Burry isn't still beating the market like a drum?

 

In neither Prem nor Burry's case did I mean total underperformance. But the macro stuff has, in both cases, detracted from performance rather than enhancing it for the last decade or so. IE. macro trading has caused their record to underperform where it would have been otherwise. Obviously Burry doesn't have a public record except for his quarterly fillings, and with the ~100% turnover he runs I think those are probably of limited utility in estimating his returns. So I agree he could still be beating the market. 

[Stuart D]

On 9/21/2023 at 11:33 PM, Jaygo said:

I truly believe that successful investing is hampered by extremely high intelligence. This stuff is not that complicated to do reasonably well and most very high IQ people need to find esoteric shit to do to feel good about themselves.

 

Ive said before ive got a buddy who is dumb as a bag of hammers and he has time and time again crushed it on simple and inelegant but obvious in hindsight investments. Facebook ipo, lake shore gold, Florida real estate in 2010 or 2011, oil in 2020, 

 

just loads of stuff and im like, huh you did what? ya well im on facebook and everybody i know is so its a got to be good buy. Well i went to Fort Lauderdale once and there's no snow in winter so I bought a 3 bed condo for 60 grand. He still has a damn Hotmail account and he's 8x his money on google. 

 

I just wished my lack of intelligence would translate to some gains lol

 

 

 

I listened to a yet another value podcast that reminded me of this post. Host Andrew was discussing the difference between a good investment idea vs a good podcast idea.

 

The good investment idea can be a 40 seconds pitch, eg. this 50c dollar bill is being liquidated and immediately distributed. While a good podcast idea is often something complicated like Cable, with lots of discussion points, risks, strategies etc.

 

A good reminder to myself to keep things simple.

[Cod Liver Oil]

On 9/21/2023 at 9:33 AM, Jaygo said:

Ive said before ive got a buddy who is dumb as a bag of hammers and he has time and time again crushed it on simple and inelegant but obvious in hindsight investments. Facebook ipo, lake shore gold, Florida real estate in 2010 or 2011, oil in 2020, 

 

just loads of stuff and im like, huh you did what? ya well im on facebook and everybody i know is so its a got to be good buy. Well i went to Fort Lauderdale once and there's no snow in winter so I bought a 3 bed condo for 60 grand. He still has a damn Hotmail account and he's 8x his money on google. 

@Jaygo this comment has made a big impression on me.  It is a mental model closely related to "shooting fish in a barrel after the water has run out."  Nintendo and JOE meet the "dumb as a bag of hammers" test to me. I don't think you need to be pathologically contrarian to appreciate them. I am training myself to appreciate the obvious a little more.

[Jaygo]

Yes simple is often better. But there are also traps that look simple but can be far more complex.  
 

maybe an easy example would be the growth of e-commerce vs the share price of container-board/ cardboard box companies. How have these not been a home run? West rock is one of the big ones and the share price is flat to down for 10 years.

 

oil and war in the Mideast is another one that is just confusing. 

[winjitsu]

Going to bring this one back. Burry is shutting down Scion and likely transitioning to a family office
 

Was in the news recently for his PLTR puts (which at $9mm is something like 6% of his $150mm AUM). Launching something on the 25th?
 

 

[This2ShallPass]

I have not followed Burry at all and only looked at Palantir last week. It's egregious valuation and imo completely deserves to be shorted (w puts so you don't lose your shirt if the mania continues). I have a couple of AI bets that have done really well but was getting a bit worried with the fast rise and been thinking of a good way to hedge. I saw Palantir and bought puts the next day. I plan on layering in the hedges if it goes back up again. 

They don't sell AI infra so cannot profit from the massive capex. Basically, an enterprise AI software company w mostly government contracts. I cannot figure out how this can be at $400B, no way! If there's a company that shouldn't be trading at 200-250x fcf , it's one that gets most of it's money selling to the government. 

Great example of how everyone loses their collective minds in a hysteria and start justifying anything and everything (remember eyeballs were the only thing needed for high valuations).

 

 

[tytthus]

https://michaeljburry.substack.com/p/the-cardinal-sign-of-a-bubble-supply
 

Cassandra of myth was doomed to tell truths no one would believe. Probably folly to think you can do the same…

[Dalal.Holdings]

Man, so he went from The Big Short to becoming another Substack Bro ?

[Gregmal]

Just came full circle. Started out as a med school blogger, and even reading some of his old VIC stuff, clearly his talent got lost in the pursuit of the macro trading obsession. Hes basically what Einhorn would've been without the rich parents. 

[dcollon]

He might be making more now that running his hedge fund.  It looks like he has close to 30,000 subscribers already for $349 per year. 

[gfp]

34 minutes ago, dcollon said:

He might be making more now that running his hedge fund.  It looks like he has close to 30,000 subscribers already for $349 per year. 

 

I believe that subscriber figure includes the "free" tier, which won't include much.

[dcollon]

Ok, makes sense.  Thanks gfp 

[Spekulatius]

22 hours ago, gfp said:

 

I believe that subscriber figure includes the "free" tier, which won't include much.

Exactly.

[gfp]

It's kind of cringe-worthy really.  He's extremely unlikely to be harping on this narrative at the exact top in AI stocks.  Much more likely that we are far enough away from a blow-off top that people reading his (I'm sure well reasoned) arguments and acting on them are going to get killed.

 

He obviously cares more about being right than his subscribers making money on the resulting financial decisions.  If he can convince a few people to sit out the mania, maybe he will save them from eventual losses.

 

But he's trying to call the top in a massive boom.  It's not slowing down

[Dalal.Holdings]

55 minutes ago, gfp said:

It's kind of cringe-worthy really.  He's extremely unlikely to be harping on this narrative at the exact top in AI stocks.  Much more likely that we are far enough away from a blow-off top that people reading his (I'm sure well reasoned) arguments and acting on them are going to get killed.

 

He obviously cares more about being right than his subscribers making money on the resulting financial decisions.  If he can convince a few people to sit out the mania, maybe he will save them from eventual losses.

 

But he's trying to call the top in a massive boom.  It's not slowing down

 

He has F-U money. Amazing how many investors just stop trying once they reach that level.

 

Now he's just resigned to arguing online about why he is right about timing the market...

 

Edited November 25, 2025 by Dalal.Holdings

[Parsad]

14 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

He has F-U money. Amazing how many investors just stop trying once they reach that level.

 

Now he's just resigned to arguing online about why he is right about timing the market...

 

 

He may be right, he may be wrong...only time will tell.  Hard to say he isn't trying if he ends up being right.  Although if he is wrong, then you would be correct.

 

When the whole world told him he was wrong about MBS, it may have created an issue where once you are fixated on an idea, it becomes hard to decipher why you may be wrong, rather than right again.

 

We shall see!

 

Cheers!

[Saluki]

Paulson made so much on that trade that they wrote a whole book about him. How has he done since? Kyle Bass is also known for that call, and his other doomsday bets on Japan and a few others never panned out afterwards. 

 

I was a lawyer with a lot of tech clients when the dot com bust happened, and at a financial regulator during the great financial crisis, so I'm always wary of the next big one. 

 

Many crappy dotcoms and weak financial instutions got plowed under in prior crises, but the internet and banking are still here. I think we just have to pick the likely survivors and not fall into the mania and try to keep playing more hands because you want every dollar the table is offering. 

[DegenerateGambler]

Why would he short NVDA when it's like 50 PE growing 30%+ per year?  He has to make sure this is the very top of the bubble to make money.   Costco is like 50 PE growing less than 15% per year, he should be shorting that one instead if he wants to short 50 PE megacaps.  I know growth rate and PE is not the end all be all but just back of the napkin calculations tells you NVDA is not extremely expensive and the AI boom better be at the very top for him to make money on it.  Unlike 2008, the companies he picked to short are not crap companies - just highly valued, especially Palantir.  I think Palantir is more likely to work out for him than NVDA, but picking on NVDA is kind of ridiculous as a short thesis.   Worst case growth slows to 20% and NVDA falls to 150 and his puts still are underwater due to time premium burn.

[Parsad]

3 hours ago, Saluki said:

Paulson made so much on that trade that they wrote a whole book about him. How has he done since? Kyle Bass is also known for that call, and his other doomsday bets on Japan and a few others never panned out afterwards. 

 

I was a lawyer with a lot of tech clients when the dot com bust happened, and at a financial regulator during the great financial crisis, so I'm always wary of the next big one. 

 

Many crappy dotcoms and weak financial instutions got plowed under in prior crises, but the internet and banking are still here. I think we just have to pick the likely survivors and not fall into the mania and try to keep playing more hands because you want every dollar the table is offering. 

 

Oh, I agree...the macro stuff is extremely difficult to navigate.  At the same time, I remember what Sam Mitchell said to us at my dinner in Toronto during the GFC:

 

"Macro doesn't really matter until it does!"  You would think Yogi Berra would have said that if he was an economist!  Cheers!

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, DegenerateGambler said:

Why would he short NVDA when it's like 50 PE growing 30%+ per year?  He has to make sure this is the very top of the bubble to make money.   Costco is like 50 PE growing less than 15% per year, he should be shorting that one instead if he wants to short 50 PE megacaps.  I know growth rate and PE is not the end all be all but just back of the napkin calculations tells you NVDA is not extremely expensive and the AI boom better be at the very top for him to make money on it.  Unlike 2008, the companies he picked to short are not crap companies - just highly valued, especially Palantir.  I think Palantir is more likely to work out for him than NVDA, but picking on NVDA is kind of ridiculous as a short thesis.   Worst case growth slows to 20% and NVDA falls to 150 and his puts still are underwater due to time premium burn.

 

That's what makes shorting so difficult.  Burry was wrong on MBS for two years...Greenblatt was going ballistic on him during that period.  And unless you are using something like derivatives, the upside to shorting is quite limited.  It really isn't worth the risk if your timing is completely off!  Cheers!

[adesigar]

2 hours ago, DegenerateGambler said:

Why would he short NVDA when it's like 50 PE growing 30%+ per year?  He has to make sure this is the very top of the bubble to make money.   Costco is like 50 PE growing less than 15% per year, he should be shorting that one instead if he wants to short 50 PE megacaps.  I know growth rate and PE is not the end all be all but just back of the napkin calculations tells you NVDA is not extremely expensive and the AI boom better be at the very top for him to make money on it.  Unlike 2008, the companies he picked to short are not crap companies - just highly valued, especially Palantir.  I think Palantir is more likely to work out for him than NVDA, but picking on NVDA is kind of ridiculous as a short thesis.   Worst case growth slows to 20% and NVDA falls to 150 and his puts still are underwater due to time premium burn.

 

Because. am I’m probably wrong on this. He’s compared Nvidia to Cisco during the .com bubble. My guess is thinks that AI is over hyped and the build out is over done. In a year or two the AI use cases won’t exist and there will be too much infrastructure and sales will fall off a cliff.

[This2ShallPass]

3 hours ago, DegenerateGambler said:

Why would he short NVDA when it's like 50 PE growing 30%+ per year?  He has to make sure this is the very top of the bubble to make money.   Costco is like 50 PE growing less than 15% per year, he should be shorting that one instead if he wants to short 50 PE megacaps.  I know growth rate and PE is not the end all be all but just back of the napkin calculations tells you NVDA is not extremely expensive and the AI boom better be at the very top for him to make money on it.  Unlike 2008, the companies he picked to short are not crap companies - just highly valued, especially Palantir.  I think Palantir is more likely to work out for him than NVDA, but picking on NVDA is kind of ridiculous as a short thesis.   Worst case growth slows to 20% and NVDA falls to 150 and his puts still are underwater due to time premium burn.

I won't short Nvidia. But you don't see an issue with the largest company in the world trading at 50 P/E?

 

[Gregmal]

12 minutes ago, This2ShallPass said:

I won't short Nvidia. But you don't see an issue with the largest company in the world trading at 50 P/E?

 

Eh, 50x with growth isnt a big deal. People said it for like 15 years with the likes of Netflix, Costco and stuff like Amazon, and now get emotional W's outta "stock hasn't done anything for a couple years" or "its off double digits from ATHs" but the truth is that many things have printed people a ton of money while carrying PE's like that. It's way more relevant to focus on where you think they are in the growth cycle. NVDA could still be kinda early in the cycle.