Stock market tranquility is almost unprecedented. That’s a red flag for Michael Burry
Michael Burry is pointing to an unusual stretch of calm beneath the stock market as another warning sign for investors, arguing that a historically long absence of broad-based selling could eventually give way to the kind of reversal he has been anticipating for months. The investor made famous by “The Big Short” highlighted research from BTIG technical strategist Jonathan Krinsky showing Wednesday marked the 182nd consecutive trading session without at least 80% of New York Stock Exchange volume declining. According to Krinsky, that’s the longest such streak in at least three decades — by nearly 50 trading days. “That sort of technical factor on its own is easy to ignore,” Burry wrote in a Substack post Wednesday. “However, I have been writing about fundamental reasons for something like this to happen since November of 2025.” Krinsky noted that if the market makes it through the end of 2026 without an 80%-plus downside-volume session, it would mark the first calendar year in at least 30 years without such an event. Every year during that time has recorded at least five such sessions, according to the BTIG strategist. Burry has emerged as one of Wall Street’s most vocal skeptics of the artificial intelligence boom, questioning the durability of spending and demand that seems to underpin the rally, and betting against some of its biggest beneficiaries. The high-profile investor said major market cycles can take months or even years to unfold, making timing them particularly dangerous for investors using leverage. “If something revolutionary is going to happen, it will happen,” Burry wrote. “And it will play out over a long enough time period for everyone to be right and for almost everyone to go bankrupt.” He believes investors should stay away from leverage while waiting for the cycle to play out. “The trick is to avoid stepping into someone else’s folly along the way,” Burry said. “Avoid the leverage, and one is more likely to avoid the folly.”
