Given his generally bearish attitude and ability to see movements few others can, most dramatically demonstrated with ‘The Big Short’ in the context of the 2008 crash, new 13-F filings by Michael Burry and Scion Asset Management are always exciting to see.
The previous record, for example, revealed a $4.3 million bet on the Chinese technology giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), a wager against the semiconductor industry in the middle of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but also a highly lucrative investment in a car-producing multinational corporation.
The latest filing similarly provides insight into several interesting developments and a string of new holdings in firms such as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Citigroup (NYSE: C), and the Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL).
Burry raises his stake in Chinese companies
Given that the Chinese stock markets – Mainland and Hong Kong – wiped approximately $7 trillion since 2021 and about $1 trillion in 2024 alone, there has been significant speculation in the leadup to the release of his F-13 filing covering the final trimester of 2023 if he gave up on his Alibaba bet.
As it turns out, Burry’s faith in some of the biggest stocks in China – Alibaba and JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) – remained firm in the fourth quarter. His original purchase of 50,000 BABA shares has grown by 25,000, meaning the bet is, at press time, worth $5.5 million.
While the investment has, so far, done little than lose money for the famous investor, it may hinge on a string of developments, including a greater focus on providing AI infrastructure and the Chinese government’s stepping in to stabilize the stock market – a decision that already saw the county’s biggest index have its largest-ever one day surge.
Burry also bought 75,000 additional JD shares, bringing his holdings up to 200,000 and his investment to about $4.6 million. Despite the generally downward trajectory both stocks have been following, they are Burry’s two top holdings as of the end of the final quarter of 2023.
Burry clears his Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) holding
Another surprise of the latest 13-f filing is that Burry decided to sell the entirety of his Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) holding. He initially started buying the car company – created in the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles-French PSA Group merger – at the beginning of 2022 and has gone through several buying and selling rounds, generally turning a profit.
It is very likely that his most recent sale of his 400,000 STLA shares – worth approximately $9.7 million at the time of publication – also turned a significant profit, given that the company has been mostly rising since early 2022 and has been one of his strongest investments by the end of 2023.
Burry gives up on betting against semiconductors
One of the more interesting decisions Burry made was to bet against the microchip industry by purchasing put options for the iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX).
The exchange-traded fund, however, continued rising throughout 2023, meaning that the bet never paid off, and sometime in the last trimester of the year, Burry cleared his position.
The idea, however, remains interesting given that Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) incredible rise to an all-time high after all-time high caused many investors to speculate if there exists a semiconductor bubble.
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