Michael Burry’s current holdings

[Gregmal]

15 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

Burry is taking his bearishness to a new level. All holdings from last quarter were sold. Has one holding that's new of which is a very small position.

Wouldnt that mean he likely sold into the bottom and missed the entire rally?

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Wouldnt that mean he likely sold into the bottom and missed the entire rally?

 

It would. 

[thowed]

He has a bunch of small-cap investments in the UK & Japan.

 

13Fs can be misleading.

[LC]

I think part of the problem is psychology - these guys get real rich, real famous...and what occupies their mind is losing it. 

 

Which is totally understandable. But I'd imagine the real smart move would be to just admit that and own a bunch of ultra conservative, pensioner/retiree type stocks.

[Gregmal]

13 minutes ago, LC said:

I think part of the problem is psychology - these guys get real rich, real famous...and what occupies their mind is losing it. 

 

Which is totally understandable. But I'd imagine the real smart move would be to just admit that and own a bunch of ultra conservative, pensioner/retiree type stocks.

Basically the Bill Gates portfolio 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, thowed said:

He has a bunch of small-cap investments in the UK & Japan.

 

13Fs can be misleading.

 

They can be but he still sold out of almost everything.

[Gregmal]

Kind of funny how Michael Burry can hold his highly exotic housing short for 3 years, but he can’t hold a stock for more than a few months.

[gfp]

6 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Kind of funny how Michael Burry can hold his highly exotic housing short for 3 years, but he can’t hold a stock for more than a few months.

 

no joke:

https://www.dataroma.com/m/m_activity.php?m=SAM&typ=a

[Guest]

Hasn't he always traded like that though? He uses charts to a large degree.

[Longnose]

57 minutes ago, stahleyp said:

Hasn't he always traded like that though? He uses charts to a large degree.

 

Yes, With the exception of the housing bubble.

 

I have followed quite a few of his trades and I bet his performance is better than people anticipate. He's a smart dude and doesn't give 2 shits what anyone else thinks. 

[Value_Added]

2 hours ago, stahleyp said:

Hasn't he always traded like that though? He uses charts to a large degree.

I remember reading some of his old comments back from his early college days while he was investing as a side hustle in medical school.  If I recall correctly, he uses an EV/EBIDTA screen to find the cheapest companies and then uses a combination of trend charts to catch upward momentum such as simple moving average, MACD, and stochastic slow.  Again, I’m regurgitating this based on memory from a while ago but this is why you see him moving in and out so often.  He’s really looking for a quick trend upwards based on momentum and then exiting.  Obviously there’s more analysis that goes into than these simple metrics but if you analyze most of his holdings and his entry points, you’ll largely find he still sticks to these metrics.

[Parsad]

3 hours ago, Longnose said:

 

Yes, With the exception of the housing bubble.

 

I have followed quite a few of his trades and I bet his performance is better than people anticipate. He's a smart dude and doesn't give 2 shits what anyone else thinks. 

 

You are probably correct, but I can imagine it being wildly volatile investing with him.  He was down some 70% before the big shorts kicked in back in 2009.  The huge swings right now certainly indicate that they are volatile once again.  It's good he's managing his own money, because that type of frenetic trading would drive partners crazy.  Cheers! 

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

 He was down some 70% before the big shorts kicked in back in 2009.   

 

 

Where did you hear that? I find that hard to believe. Are you thinking of Pabrai??

[Gregmal]

1 hour ago, Parsad said:

 

You are probably correct, but I can imagine it being wildly volatile investing with him.  He was down some 70% before the big shorts kicked in back in 2009.  The huge swings right now certainly indicate that they are volatile once again.  It's good he's managing his own money, because that type of frenetic trading would drive partners crazy.  Cheers! 

Well you’d also think someone who gives another person money should make an effort to educate themselves beforehand about what they’re getting into. Investors who have no problem with upward volatility but then get cranky when it’s to the downside deserve their losses.
 

Separately, I really don’t think Burry qualifies at all as an investor.  Name of the game is making money and if he does that, then great. But his sporadic ownership and manic episodes hardly indicate to me he is investing at all.

[Jaygo]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Well you’d also think someone who gives another person money should make an effort to educate themselves beforehand about what they’re getting into. Investors who have no problem with upward volatility but then get cranky when it’s to the downside deserve their losses.
 

Separately, I really don’t think Burry qualifies at all as an investor.  Name of the game is making money and if he does that, then great. But his sporadic ownership and manic episodes hardly indicate to me he is investing at all.

I would agree. He is more a speculator and sharp minded too so sprinkle in some charts and Math you get the swings in and out. 
 

an investor is someone like akre, Buffett, and lynch who buy  businesses for their merit and only sell when the business no longer represents what you want to be an owner of. 

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, stahleyp said:

 

 

Where did you hear that? I find that hard to believe. Are you thinking of Pabrai??

 

Sorry, I went back to a Vanity Fair article I read a long time ago...thought it said that when Greenblatt and others were pulling he was down 70%.  It was he had to sell hundreds of millions of CDS to meet the redemptions.  Cheers!

[stockman500]

4 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Sorry, I went back to a Vanity Fair article I read a long time ago...thought it said that when Greenblatt and others were pulling he was down 70%.  It was he had to sell hundreds of millions of CDS to meet the redemptions.  Cheers!

Was he really down that much????

I remember there was a clip in the Big Short where it was like -17% or -20% in giant writing on the white board in his fund work office, outside his personal office, and that scene was supposed to show his low point.

 

Him selling out completely would certainly match up with recent tweets where he's saying this is just a bear rally and new lows will be made. 

 

 

[Parsad]

20 minutes ago, stockman500 said:

Was he really down that much????

I remember there was a clip in the Big Short where it was like -17% or -20% in giant writing on the white board in his fund work office, outside his personal office, and that scene was supposed to show his low point.

 

Him selling out completely would certainly match up with recent tweets where he's saying this is just a bear rally and new lows will be made. 

 

 

 

No, he wasn't down 70%...about 25-30% at the low.  But he did have to redeem several hundred million of his bet to appease Greenblatt and other's redemptions.  Cheers!

[Cigarbutt]

From the Big Short (Micheal Lewis):

"And  so  in  January  2007, [ ... ],  Michael Burry sat down to explain to his investors how, in a year when the S&P had risen by more than 10 percent, he had lost 18.4  percent.  A  person  who  had  had  money  with  him  from  the beginning  would  have  enjoyed  gains of 186  percent  over  those  six  years, compared to 10.13 percent for the S&P 500 Index, but Burry's long-term success was  no  longer  relevant. He was now being judged monthly.  "The  year  just completed was one in which I underperformed nearly all my peers and friends by, variably, thirty or forty percentage points," he wrote. "A money manager does not go from being a near nobody to being nearly universally applauded to being nearly universally vilified without some effect." The effect, he went on to demonstrate, was to make him ever more certain that the entire financial world was wrong and he was right. "I have always believed that a single talented analyst, working very hard, can cover an amazing amount of investment landscape, and this belief remains unchallenged in my mind.""

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Sorry, I went back to a Vanity Fair article I read a long time ago...thought it said that when Greenblatt and others were pulling he was down 70%.  It was he had to sell hundreds of millions of CDS to meet the redemptions.  Cheers!

 

Thanks for the clarification, Sanj. Yeah a 70% drawdown just seems like something I would have remembered. 

[Guest]

Here's my 2 cents (3 now with inflation?) on Burry:

 

He is one of the elite money managers. He's one of the very few guys I actually pay attention too. He's an original thinker and doesn't mindlessly bellow out Buffett quotes.

 

However, I think he's too overdramatic (he is human after all). I think his overdramatic nature is what allows him to hit those crazy rare but huge trades but it also sets him up for things like "index funds are a stock market bubble" or comparing the current inflation to Weimar Germany. I mean, if someone would have told you in 2006 what 2008 would look like, you would say they are crazy and overdramatic too. It's his Achilles' heel and his superpower all in one. 

[rogermunibond]

Maybe someone introduced Burry to Hussman

 

It's funny to describe someone with Aspergers as overdramatic.

[n.r98]

It's weird because he wasn't like this previously. Back in the mid 2000s, u can track his 13F and turnover was not this high, some stocks lasted multiple quarters etc. But now, it's literally a full portfolio turnover every q. 

[ERICOPOLY]

He is self-diagnosed, which leaves open the possibility that he doesn't have it.

 

And his diagnosis today would be Autism Spectrum Disorder, not Asperger's.  Asperger's is not a diagnosis.

 

[Castanza]

18 hours ago, Value_Added said:

I remember reading some of his old comments back from his early college days while he was investing as a side hustle in medical school.  If I recall correctly, he uses an EV/EBIDTA screen to find the cheapest companies and then uses a combination of trend charts to catch upward momentum such as simple moving average, MACD, and stochastic slow.  Again, I’m regurgitating this based on memory from a while ago but this is why you see him moving in and out so often.  He’s really looking for a quick trend upwards based on momentum and then exiting.  Obviously there’s more analysis that goes into than these simple metrics but if you analyze most of his holdings and his entry points, you’ll largely find he still sticks to these metrics.

 

You can still read his posts over on SiliconInvestor. Thought process is interesting to read through. The dude definitely can approach investing from multiple angles which a lot of guys don't or can't do.