Burry, famous for 'Big Short,' bought bearish options against S&P, Nasdaq 100

2023-08-15 02:25

By David Randall and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK Michael Burry, the money manager made famous in the

By David Randall and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

NEW YORK Michael Burry, the money manager made famous in the book and film "The Big Short," held bearish options against the broad S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 Index at the end of the second quarter, according to securities fillings released on Monday.

Burry's Scion Asset Management bought put options with a notional value of $739 million against the popular Invesco QQQ Trust ETF during the quarter, and separate put options with a notional value of $886 million against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF.

Put options convey the right to sell shares at a fixed price in the future and are typically bought to express a bearish or defensive view.

Burry rose to fame with his bets against the U.S. housing market before the 2008 financial crisis. Michael Lewis' nonfiction book "The Big Short" was released in 2010 and the movie version came out in 2015.

It was not clear how Burry's recent options bets had fared, given that regulatory filings do not require the disclosure of options strikes, purchase prices and expiration dates. Since the filings disclose only long positions it was also not clear whether the puts were held outright or against other contracts that were held short.

The S&P 500 is up roughly 17% for the year to date while the Nasdaq 100 is up nearly 39% over the same period. Outsized gains in a handful of megacap companies such as Nvidia and Meta Platforms have fueled much of the year's rally.

The filing also showed that the fund liquidated its stakes in Chinese e-commerce company JD.com and Alibaba Group Holdings, as well as regional banks PacWest and Western Alliance Bancorp.

Among its long positions, the fund more than doubled its stake in online luxury goods market RealReal Inc, which is up nearly 100% for the year to date, and added new stakes in iHeartMedia, HanesBrands, and Warner Bros. Discovery, among others, the filing showed.

Scion Asset Management did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by David Randall and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Matthew Lewis)