If you’ve seen the movie The Big Short, which is based on the novel by Michael Lewis and features acclaimed actors Steve Carrell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Jeremy Strong, then you probably know who Michael Burry is. The former Stanford neurology resident rose to prominence while posting stock ideas online during the early days of the internet.
His ideas were so good that he eventually left the medical field to launch his own fund. Prior to the Great Recession, Burry correctly bet against the housing market, making hundreds of millions in profits for his fund, Scion Capital. Now, Burry runs another fund called Scion Asset Management, which happened to sell nearly all of its stocks in the first quarter, while also buying put options. Did Burry just pull off another “big short” trade? It certainly looks that way.
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Burry timed the tariff-induced sell-off perfectly
Burry never runs too large of a portfolio, typically holding about a dozen stocks, plus or minus a few. In the first quarter, he sold nearly all of his holdings. He had been quite bullish on China, owning large Chinese stocks like Alibaba, Baidu, JD.Com, and PDD Holdings. But after selling these stocks, he also purchased put options on these names. Put options are similar to call options but in the opposite direction, essentially betting that a stock price will decline. Burry also purchased put options on Nvidia.
Image source: Getty Images.
Now, keep in mind that the 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission only shows us Scion’s positions at the close of trading on March 31. We have no idea at what point during the first quarter Burry sold or at what price.
However, it’s quite possible that Burry saw rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China and decided to get ahead of a potential marketwide sell-off caused by tariffs. If this was the case, then Burry pulled off another “big short” trade and timed it perfectly because the market absolutely collapsed in early April after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day,” falling nearly 20% from highs made in February. Nvidia, at one point this year, traded 30% lower and was down much more from highs made during the year.
Nvidia not only got hit by the trade war but also after the Trump administration placed export restrictions on certain semiconductor chips to China. Nvidia does a substantial amount of business in China, but the stock has recovered a lot since the U.S. and China announced a 90-day pause on higher tariff rates against one another.
Interestingly, Burry’s lone remaining long position is the multinational cosmetics company Estée Lauder, which is down over 50% in the last year (as of May 16). Scion actually doubled its position in the company in the first quarter. It’s not uncommon for Burry to take long positions in deep-value stocks like he did with GameStop right before the meme stock blasted into orbit in what turned into an epic retail trading frenzy.
Is Burry going long-term bear?
We really won’t know the answer to this question until we see Scion’s 13F for the current quarter sometime in July. However, it’s quite possible that Burry was only short-term bearish and saw the trade war coming. Burry has done this before. In the second quarter of 2022, right after the Federal Reserve began its intense interest rate hiking campaign, Scion also sold all of its stocks except one. By the third quarter, Scion had begun accumulating stocks again.
It would, of course, be quite impressive if Burry sold all of his stocks in the first quarter and then bought the dip after the market sold off intensely right before Trump announced a pause on elevated tariff rates. I wouldn’t put it past the legendary investor. Burry could also be more long-term bearish, as he studies economic data closely, which indicates a potential slowdown in consumer spending and the overall economy.
I think the big takeaway is that we don’t quite know how Burry is positioned for the rest of the year just yet in terms of being bearish or bullish. However, it definitely looks like Burry pulled off another “big short” trade.
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Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Baidu and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group and JD.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.