Michael Burry, the medical doctor turned successful investor, made a name for himself in 2008 when he correctly predicted the crisis and shorted the U.S. housing market.
Since then, the now-famous investor has been intermittently active in the stock market as well as on X, and to this day, his portfolio boasts some interesting picks and is filled both by winners and seeming losers.
Finally, Burry’s latest actions and the fruits of his famous bearish mindset are set to be revealed in his 13-F filings set to be released on February 14, and Finbold decided to look at his most recent known performance to try and gauge what can be expected later this week.
Burry’s most notable investments
By the end of 2023, one of Burry’s most successful investments proved to be Hudson Pacific Properties (NYSE: HPP), a real estate investment trust, as it surged more than 90% in the six months leading up to Christman Day.
The stock’s performance, however, has taken a major turn since and is down 19.05% year-to-date (YTD). The upcoming filings will reveal if the investor famed for predicting a collapse has foreseen this crash and sold around New Year’s Day or if, perhaps, he considers the trust has taken a mere flesh wound with the recent drop.
On the other hand, Burry’s largest individual stock holding, Stellantis NV (NYSE: STLA) – the multinational automotive manufacturing corporation that emerged from the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles-French PSA Group merger – has continued rising, 5.90% in total, in 2024.
Perhaps the most interesting revelation of Burry’s 13-f filing in the third quarter of 2023 has been his acquisition of 50,000 shares of the Chinese technology giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA, HKG: 9988).
While it wasn’t the only loser in the famous investor’s portfolio, it is perhaps the most storied, given the immense turmoil the Chinese market has been experiencing since 2021 and – to an even greater extent – since New Year’s Day.
Indeed, this stock might be the most interesting part of Burry’s first 2024 13-f filing as it will reveal if he sold the stock after losing up to $750,000 on his bet or if he, perhaps, took advantage of the Chinese market’s two-week $1 trillion wipe to increase the size of his position.
The danger of the big short squeeze
Given that Burry is famous for his “Big Short” in 2008, it isn’t surprising that his outlook for 2024 has also been reported as bearish. Had he decided to act on his predictions, it is likely that the upcoming filing would reveal some major losses stemming from poorly picked short positions.
Indeed, not only did Burry make a losing bet against the iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) – one of the biggest semiconductor exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – in 2023, but the stock market has been doing rather well in 2024 with S&P 500 index closing at its highest level ever as recently as Friday, February 9.
On the other hand, this year has already brought some strong opportunities for shorting. The most notable example comes in the form of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle (EV) maker, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), which is down 22.08% since January 1, meaning that the famous bear is not guaranteed to have lost money on shorts in recent months.
Finally, such a pivot from the semiconductor industry to the EV sector would not be out of character since Burry’s Scion Asset Management owned a large short position on Tesla as recently as 2021, and the investor himself has previously been critical of both Musk and his company.
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