Michael Burry has once again captured the financial world’s attention, re-emerging on the public stage with remarkable force and characteristic subtlety. The acclaimed investor, whose foresight during the mid-2000s housing collapse inspired both the bestselling book and Oscar-winning film *The Big Short*, resurfaced on X (formerly Twitter) last Thursday — his first public post since April 2023. His return was marked not by a lengthy essay or grand pronouncement, but by a single evocative image: a film still featuring actor Christian Bale in the role of Burry, gazing at a computer screen with an expression of disbelief and calculation. Beneath this cinematic snapshot, Burry penned a brief but loaded reflection: “Sometimes, we see bubbles. Sometimes, there is something to do about it. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.”
Though concise, Burry’s message conveyed the sense that he perceives once again a wave of excessive speculation sweeping through global markets — a phenomenon where asset prices detach from rational valuation, lifted instead by hype, momentum, and collective euphoria. Yet, in contrast to his famously aggressive bets against housing in the 2000s, this time he seems to suggest an intentional distance, as though recognizing that prudent inaction can occasionally be the wisest and most strategic course when the odds of profitable intervention appear slim.
Accompanying this cryptic post, Burry altered his X profile name to “Cassandra Unchained,” an allusion with mythological significance. Cassandra, cursed by Apollo to deliver infallible prophecies forever ignored by her peers, stands throughout history as a symbol of the unheeded truth-teller. By invoking her name and freeing her metaphorically from her chains, Burry cast himself once more in the role of the reluctant seer who warns of danger in an environment deafened by optimism. The thematic consistency deepened when observers noticed that Burry had replaced his social-media header image with *Satire of Tulip Mania*, Jan Brueghel the Younger’s early 17th-century painting lampooning the Dutch tulip craze — one of the earliest recorded and most notorious examples of speculative mania. This choice echoed his November 2021 return to the platform, when he had also drawn parallels between current markets and historic bubbles.
Burry’s reputation as a contrarian thinker and meticulous student of market psychology precedes him. Celebrated primarily for predicting and profiting from the implosion of the U.S. housing market in the mid-2000s, his daring short positions were immortalized in *The Big Short* — a cultural milestone that turned his data-driven skepticism into legend. Over the years, he has frequently sounded alarms about overvaluation, liquidity excess, and speculative fevers ranging from meme stocks to cryptocurrencies. His portfolio maneuvers have often mirrored this skepticism. He famously took an early, prescient position in GameStop well before its retail-driven explosion, and at various points has placed high-profile short bets against pillars of the modern bull market such as Tesla, Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation Fund, Apple, major semiconductor names like Nvidia, and broad market indices including the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.
During the exuberant summer of 2021, Burry issued what many interpreted as one of his most sweeping warnings yet, cautioning that markets were engulfed in what he called “the greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things.” He admonished investors chasing meme stocks, digital assets, and other high-flying plays that they were heading toward a reckoning he dramatically dubbed “the mother of all crashes.” His forewarnings reached Elon Musk himself, who in an ironic twist responded by calling Burry a “broken clock,” implying that even perennially bearish voices are occasionally right purely by chance. Those exchanges illustrated Burry’s peculiar role in the financial conversation: a solitary analyst alternately mocked and revered for his conviction-driven contrarianism.
Early in 2023, a single-word post — “Sell.” — appeared on his account, sending ripples through the financial community. Yet shortly afterward, Burry retreated from public commentary, keeping his 1.4 million X followers guessing about his next move. When he finally resurfaced, his cryptic tone and symbolic imagery suggested a renewed yet tempered concern rather than a call to arms.
Recent filings from Scion Asset Management, Burry’s hedge fund, provide additional texture to this evolving narrative. In the second quarter of this year, the fund notably pivoted from a defensive to a more constructive stance. According to its latest portfolio disclosures, Scion exchanged bearish put options on six companies for bullish call options across nine different equities. The notional value of those new call positions totaled approximately $522 million — nearly triple the $186 million previously allocated to puts.
At the close of March, Scion’s holdings were relatively concentrated: seven positions including bearish plays on Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com, as well as semiconductor titan Nvidia, while maintaining a direct equity stake in beauty conglomerate Estée Lauder. Three months later, diversification became apparent. The portfolio expanded to fifteen positions, encompassing a blend of call options and direct stakes in firms such as Estée Lauder, athletic apparel leader Lululemon, and renewed exposure to Alibaba, JD.com, and VF Corporation. This shift prompted analysts like Peter Mallouk, president and CEO of Creative Planning, to observe that Burry had moved from a sector-specific bearish conviction to a broader, more optimistic bet presuming that the ongoing bull market could persist.
When pressed, Scion Asset Management declined to comment, maintaining its customary discretion. Yet Burry’s latest social-media appearance — steeped in allegory, irony, and restraint — suggests he remains deeply engaged with assessing systemic risk even as he experiments with more flexible interpretations of opportunity. His ability to communicate vast, unsettling ideas through sparse words and layered symbolism continues to captivate market observers, particularly those who remember that his cautious warnings have, more than once, proven prophetic.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/big-short-michael-burry-bubble-warning-x-account-scion-crash-2025-10
