In July, four out of five of the short seller's bets from *The Short Game* paid off. Which ones?
If Bury hasn't yet closed the short positions he announced in late June, then four of his five bets have paid off / Photo: Photo by Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images
Trader Michael Burry’s latest series of “bearish” bets on June 30 against Caterpillar, Nvidia, Applied Materials, and Tesla, as well as the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, could have yielded a profit for the investor on four out of five positions, according to CNBC’s calculations. A short position is a bet that a stock’s price will fall. An investor borrows the securities, sells them, and then hopes to buy them back at a lower price to return them to the lender.
— Burry’s most profitable bet so far has been against Tesla. The electric vehicle maker’s stock plummeted by 18% over the course of a week— its sharpest weekly decline since 2022—following a disappointing quarterly earnings report released on Wednesday. Since the beginning of July, the stock has lost about 26.4% and fallen to $313. In late June, Burry wrote on his Substack blog, Cassandra Unchained, that he had opened a short position on Tesla at a price of $416.22. As a result, the investor could have already made more than $103 per share—or about 24.8%—excluding commissions and the cost of borrowing the shares.
"I haven't closed my short position on Tesla. It's getting smaller on its own," Burry wrote in a new Substack post on July 24, as noted by CNBC.
— Another of Burry’s bets: shares of Caterpillar, a manufacturer of construction equipment and power generators, fell by about 16% this month, to $888.7, compared to the $1,060.98 level at which, according to the investor, he opened a short position. “I’ve never shorted Caterpillar before. In the past, this stock has always performed very well for me in long positions,” Burry wrote in a June post on Substack.
— The results of the trader’s “bearish” bets against the semiconductor sector have been mixed so far, according to CNBC. The price of VanEck Semiconductor ETF shares has fallen to $561.20 per share, compared to the $642.80 opening price for the short position that Burry cited at the end of June. Applied Materials shares have fallen to approximately $536.3 from $729.4.
— The short position on Nvidia—the only one among all those Burry disclosed in late June—did not pan out: the stock rose to approximately $206.80 from the $198.09 level at which Burry opened a short position in the company’s shares. However, according to the trader, he continues to increase his bets against Nvidia even now: demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure is driven not so much by end customers as by financing schemes, Burry explained. “A significant portion, and possibly the majority,” of current and future demand is financed off-balance-sheet through a circular scheme in which Nvidia invests in companies that then purchase Nvidia equipment, the trader noted.
On Friday, Burry announced that he was increasing several of his “bearish” bets against technology companies and, in addition to short positions in Nvidia shares, had also increased his bets against the VanEck Semiconductor ETF.
It is unclear whether Burry still holds all the positions he mentioned on June 30, CNBC reports. For example, he did not provide any information about his short positions in Caterpillar and Applied Materials.
The investor is known for betting against the U.S. housing market in 2008, which served as the basis for the book and movie *The Big Short*.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
