’The Big Short’ investor Michael Burry has $36 million bet against Apple
- maj
- 17
The put position on Apple's shares would be worth around $36 million if exercised.
What you need to know
- Michael Burry is a famed investor known for betting against stocks he believes are overvalued.
- He shot to fame for predicting the collapse of the housing market, as depicted in the film The Big Short.
- Filings have revealed that Burry has a bet against Apple shares worth roughly $36 million.
Michael Burry, the famed investor who bet against the housing market in the mid-2000s, has a short position against Apple worth roughly $36 million, new filings have revealed.
An SEC filing from Monday reveals that Burry's Scion Asset Management had put options against 206,000 Apple shares as of March 31. As the filing notes the put is worth an estimated $36 million if it were to be exercised, making it the largest holding in his portfolio at some 18%.
For the uninitiated, it means Burry is betting that Apple's share price is going to fall, with the market certainly following so far in 2022. Apple's share price is down some 20% since the turn of the year, and nearly 12% in the last month. Apple's fortunes are largely reflective of the stock market as a whole, with other tech stocks including Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla all falling sharply. Interestingly, the filing reveals that Burry has bought 80,000 shares in Meta (formerly Facebook) and 6,500 shares in Alphabet (Google), showing his clear belief that he doesn't think all tech stocks are in the same boat and that some may be set to rise.
Burry is famed for having bet big against the mid-2000s housing market on the basis that it was primarily propped up by poor quality mortgages, a story immortalized in the 2010 book The Big Short and a movie by the same name starring Christian Bale as Burry, along with Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt.