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- Michael Burry built new stakes in Alibaba, JD.com, and MGM Resorts last quarter.
- The investor of "The Big Short" fame may have spied value in beaten-down Chinese tech stocks.
- Burry swapped out all but two of the holdings in his US stock portfolio.
Michael Burry placed new bets on Alibaba, JD.com, and MGM Resorts last quarter, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed on Tuesday.
The investor of "The Big Short" fame bought 50,000 American Depositary Shares (ADS) of Alibaba, valued at $4.4 million on December 31. He also scooped up 75,000 American Depositary Receipts (ADR) of JD.com, worth $4.2 million at the end of last year.
ADS and ADR are traded on US stock exchanges but represent ownership of foreign-listed companies. Alibaba and JD.com are both Chinese e-commerce businesses.
Both Alibaba and JD.com shares were hit hard last year by growing threats of government regulation, plus a wider exodus from risky technology stocks in the face of rising interest rates and a potential recession. Burry, a value investor who specializes in sniffing out bargains, may have determined the two companies' shares were oversold and likely to stage a comeback.
Burry's Scion Asset Management also purchased 100,000 shares of MGM, a position worth $3.4 million at last quarter's close. The fund switched out all but two of its six previous holdings; Geo Group and Qurate Retail were the only survivors.
Overall, Scion grew its US stock portfolio from six positions to nine, and its total value swelled by 13% to about $47 million.
Burry's purchases suggest he remained bullish last quarter. He set alarm bells ringing when he slashed his portfolio to a single position in the second quarter of last year, but added five additional names in the third quarter.
Despite the bets on a select few companies, Burry has issued several dire warnings to investors this year, likely in response to the stock market's breathless rally in recent weeks. He offered a one-word piece of advice in late January: "Sell." He's also compared the stock market's rally this year to the dot-com bubble, and cautioned meme-stock buyers.
Burry is most famous for his billion-dollar bet against the mid-2000s housing bubble, which was chronicled in the book and movie "The Big Short." He's also known for investing in GameStop before it became a meme stock, betting against Elon Musk's Tesla and Cathie Wood's flagship Ark fund last year, and making grim predictions about market crashes and economic catastrophes.