Michael Burry, whose story prior to and during the 2008 financial crisis was portrayed in the hit film “The Big Short,” sold all his U.S. stocks last quarter before warning of an impending crash.
Burry essentially liquidated the entire portfolio of his firm, Scion Asset Management, except for one holding of 500,000 shares in Geo Group, currently valued at around $3.3 million, according to Insider. Geo invests in private prisons and mental health facilities, and has a market capitalization of under $900 million, the outlet noted.
Scion held 11 stocks totaling $165 million in March, excluding a significant put against more than 200,000 Apple shares, Insider continued. The revelation of his mass liquidation was made public Monday via a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
‘Put On Your Seat Belts On’: BlackRock President Warns Of Massive Shortages Due To Inflation https://t.co/ZbFkqFkrHm
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 30, 2022
Burry is arguably best known for Christian Bale’s portrayal in “The Big Short,” but to many traders, his unique Twitter account is a one-stop-shop for economic tips and trends — even though he regularly deletes everything he tweets, according to another Insider article. His followers are said to interpret his decision to drop almost everything as a bad omen, Insider suggested in their most recent article.
He is known for his blunt financial forecasts, having recently told investors not to get excited about the recent rally in stocks, Insider noted. Burry called last summer the “greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things,” noting that meme stock and cryptocurrency owners were flying toward the “mother of all crashes.”
Over the weekend, he said he “can’t shake that silly pre-Enron, pre-9/11, pre-WorldCom feeling,” suggesting that the market is in a state of faux-euphoria similar to the environment preceding the dot-com crash, the outlet noted. (RELATED: ‘I Saw That Coming’: Daily Caller Reporter Slams Biden Admin For Acting Like Inflation Came Out Of Nowhere)
He tweeted Friday that credit card balances are continuing to rise because “consumers choose violence rather than [cutting] back on spending in the face of inflation,” Bloomberg reported. He also predicted that U.S. households would likely exhaust all of their savings by this coming Christmas as a result of higher food, fuel, housing costs and a lack of government support, Insider reported in an analysis of his recent activities.