Investor that Inspired ‘The Big Short’ Has Sold All of his Stocks — Except One

He perfectly predicted the last crash and is bracing himself for what’s coming

Mitchell Peterson
6 min readSep 8, 2022
Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

Michael Burry came to fame for his multi-billion-dollar bet against the US housing market in the mid-2000s. His background, reasoning, and interesting personality were chronicled in the Michael Lewis book The Big Short, which became a Hollywood feature and Christian freaking Bale played Burry.

Many, including the investors who put him as the manager of a fund, thought he was out of his mind when he made his moves before the subprime mortgage crisis hit. They tried their best to get him to change the position. When that didn’t work they attempted to pull their money out but couldn’t, and then ended up making an insane return thanks to Burry’s foresight.

So his fame grew, Michael Lewis came knocking, wrote a great book on the whole crash, and somehow Michael Burry found himself at a movie premier and with legions of fans and investors following his every trade.

Then a few weeks ago, he sold off his entire US stock portfolio except for a $3.3 million stake in one firm: a company that invests in private prisons and mental health institutions.

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Mitchell Peterson
Mitchell Peterson

Written by Mitchell Peterson

Freelance writer who spent nine years outside the US, currently in rural America writing the Substack bestseller 18 Uncles.

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