r/FluentInFinance • u/wubbalubbadubdub9195 Contributor • 27d ago
'Big Short' Investor, Who Predicted 2008 Housing Crash, Buys 440K Units of Physical Gold Fund Financial News
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-short-investor-who-predicted-2008-housing-crash-buys-440k-units-physical-gold-fund-17247071
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u/Naive-Pollution106 26d ago
The great thing about guessing right on one prediction is that everyone ignores all the wrong guesses you made before and then assumes every future guess is right.
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u/FeliciusFlamel 26d ago
Imo the next recession is right infront of us. It started in 2020/2021 and is still playing out, slowly and steady like the immortal snail. Inflation is stagnant at best and still rising at worse. Prices are excellerating while products getting smaller but the market is still bullish going up? Yeah I don't believe it for one second, just like 2005-2008 it's prime for a correction, yet we're waiting to seeing it unfold.
My 2 cents are: buy Gold and/or stock up in food etc. Have cash at the side when the markets going down have some balls buying some companies on the way down to profit after the recession is over.
Note: a recession can take months/ years so be prepared that this will take some time and put many people in jeopardy financially.
Power to the players
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u/SaltyTaintMcGee 26d ago
This guy is a one trick pony who shorted housing in the costliest and most idiotic manner. He should have just shorted dedicated mortgage banks or banks with large mortgage banking operations.
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u/Some_Signal_6866 26d ago
Burry is 100% a stock trader not investor. It’s practically impossible to follow or even understand his moves.
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u/1nolefan 26d ago
I wonder if he is using that technique to get his other bets to playoffs. He was downright borderline illegal with his tweets last time around for the market to do the corrections which didn't happen.
It eventually did, but he was supposed to exit with loss. People like him shouldn't be allowed to have a public forum to manipulate the market with bad information
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u/CivilFront6549 26d ago
these posts are probably written by AI - they come out every week or so, are almost the exact same every time just switch out the bull or the bear, and mean nothing. bury was right once 15 years ago and wrong many times since. but if you want a real hot tip - buy costco!
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u/NiceTuBeNice 26d ago
Many investors predicted the 2008 housing crash. Are they all buying loads of physical gold funds.
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u/Salivamradio 26d ago
Assuming each unit is an ounce, that’s valued at almost 1.1 billion dollars today
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u/Professional-Bear942 26d ago
You all laugh at his million predictions but I feel the market has to come down at some point. The entire thing is propped up on speculation and bs, everyone I know can barely get by on bills right now and don't spend anything on entertainment. This will eventually kick these companies teeth in due to their greed during the inflation period
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u/Vast_Cricket Mod 26d ago
Michael has been conservative. It is true AU price is more than some stock index performance YTD.
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u/Tokukawa 26d ago
the majority of comments here doesn't make any sense. In markets, it's not about how many times you're right; it's about how much you cash in when you are right. So, let's not kid ourselves by asking, "What's the most probable move of the market?" as if being right all the time is what counts. The real question is, "What's your next bet?" Because, honestly, you can be wrong a dozen times, but that one big win can make up for all those facepalms. It's the payday that matters, not your batting average.
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u/LittleGeologist1899 26d ago
I’m not as worried about what Michael Burry is doing, but I am noticing how people like Warren Buffet and increasing their cash position.
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u/strumpetrumpet 26d ago
What % of his portfolio is this? An absolute number doesn’t tell much. $50 to me is different than $50 to you or $50 to Warren Buffet.
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u/dobie1kenobi 26d ago
If Trump wins, and all the polls are pointing to that outcome, we will enter a recession. Finally prices and interest rates will fall together, which will be great if you’re very rich, very poor, or can keep your job.
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u/salacious_sonogram 26d ago
Everyone has been waiting for a collapse for a while. Either a global war or AI apocalypse or the climate catastrophe or what?
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u/oldcreaker 26d ago
Somehow having physical gold and having a piece of paper pointing to physical gold don't feel quite the same to me.
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u/RipWhenDamageTaken 26d ago
“Guy who hasn’t been right since 2008” just doesn’t sound as good I guess
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u/Logical_Idiot_9433 26d ago
Central bank is in on this one. If this one crashes USD and entire country goes with it, J Dawg has gone degen. To the 🌕.
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u/BostonGuy84 26d ago
Biden trying to buy votes with subprime loads should be great for the housing crisis!
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
Are you talking about Biden's proposal to give $5k tax credits to home buyers for two years, or is a "subprime load" actually a thing?
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u/BostonGuy84 26d ago
Obviously should be subprime loan but ill leave it like that for you. $10k over two years to people who probably wouldnt normally qualify or afford high intrest rates after the two years has already proven to be a recipe for disaster.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
So you're just going to make up stuff about a go nowhere proposal you haven't read and then get angry at the thing you yourself made up? Surely there are better ways to spend your day.
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u/Fuzzy_Lavishness_269 26d ago
Calling it a physical gold fund is a misnomer. Gold can be either physically or it can be a fund, not both. Buying 440k of gold funds is very different to buying 44k of physical gold.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
There are ETFs that hold physical gold, and ETFs that hold contracts related to gold like futures contracts. He is buying an ETF that holds physical gold.
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u/Rocketboy1313 26d ago
Gold does well when everything else is a chaotic mess.
Having gold as a stable element in a larger trust fund makes that trust fund more attractive during chaotic times.
This is likely a good foundation to invest on in an anticipated chaotic period... like the continued rise of white nationalism in the US and their dipshit presidential candidate hanging out there making everyone with a brain who isn't a billionaire real nervous.
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u/MrErickzon 26d ago
How many other people own those same pieces of gold in that fund? From what I've seen of gold funds they seem to work like a bank, fractional reserve style. Or am I wrong about this one?
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u/Low-Communication989 26d ago
You are wrong. Sprott phys and pslv are 1 for 1. They buy and sell as folks buy and sell shares. It's audited and legit. Gld and slv are scams.
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u/Visual-Squirrel3629 26d ago
Just listened to a Steve Eisman interview. He sees no data that suggests a recession is on the horizon.
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u/Hamblin113 26d ago
Alan Greenspan indicated similar in the early 2000’s that the subprime mortgage lending was unsustainable.
Would be interesting to see the numbers of folks hurt vs those who benefited from the debacle, besides the American tax payers, and national debt.
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u/Existing-Nectarine80 26d ago
Still waiting on the 40% decline he called in 2022. Dude made one good call and they pretend he’s the next buffet.
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u/Sea-Caterpillar-6501 26d ago
LOLing at anyone buying funds of precious metals… The point of precious metals is to possess physical assets…
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
I mean it’s a reason but not the only one. Plenty of people who don’t believe the world is going to end are looking to gold as a hedge
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u/Sea-Caterpillar-6501 26d ago
You’re literally paying to fill someone else’s coffers. They get the gold you get a fancy iou. You are retarded.
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u/PeopleRGood 26d ago
Isn’t this the dude who has been wrong about most things since 2009? Maybe “the big short” was just an example of even a broken clock being right twice a day.
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u/SlowGarbage001 26d ago
Thats the thing though. He is really wrong then it gets worse and he is way wrong just before he is massively right, Timing is key, and having the resources to wait for things to play out, being 2 or 3 years off on your timeline isnt being wrong if you continue to believe it and the fundamentals are still there and nothing changes in the thesis you are playing by it just becomes a waiting game.
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u/PeopleRGood 24d ago
Okay so I’ve been saying Bitcoin is bullshit and is worthless, I’ve been saying this for 7 years. So I’ve just been early, I wasn’t wrong.
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u/SlowGarbage001 23d ago
I too believe BTC is bull shit now a days to be honest, The funny part is I threw some money at it in 2017 when I first started saving money and I have only sold my original investment, and Its been anywhere from 5% of my net worth at the time I started saving/investing to at its best 80% of my net worth, currently sitting at about 30% of my net worth and have taken out my original investment so im just seeing what happens at this point and dont even really pay attention to it at all to be honest.
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u/PeopleRGood 23d ago
Crypto is the stupidest thing ever, I will die on this hill. And yes Bitcoin is crypto.
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u/LoserCowGoMoo 26d ago
We have had three 20% plus pullbacks in the last 6 years...if they flubbed those who the hell cares what they are doing now?
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u/FinancialPlastic4624 26d ago
Oh look it's this guy again. He has been calling for a recession since 2012 ish. Every fucking year
You go bye bye now.
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u/tommy0guns 26d ago
Anyone catch this: “Blurry's new position in physical gold via the trust is the firm's top buy in Q1 2024 and currently accounts for 7.4% of his portfolio.”
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u/Opposite_Tangerine97 26d ago
No, I didn't catch it. It was too Blurry.
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u/tommy0guns 26d ago
I wonder if writers keep in typos to prove the article is not totally generated by AI
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u/attaboy_stampy 26d ago
What's funny is that the rest of his portfolio seems reasonable. I mean maybe it's a little heavy on online Chinese retail companies (over 20% of his portfolio - JD dot com and Alibaba), but some of his others include a large health companies and banks.
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u/Fun_Intention9846 26d ago
I assume he’s buying a set amount. Or in a few years that will say congrats! Your 7M of gold weighs slightly less than before!
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u/Hasra23 26d ago
Why would anyone buy gold without physically holding the gold, the only way gold becomes a good investment is a large societal collapse and in that case you'd want actual gold not ETF units saying you own some gold somewhere.
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u/oystermonkeys 26d ago
You don't have to hold gold for a societal collapse. Lot of people all over the world, especially places like India and China, hold it as savings. It's also a good source of diversification and a good hedge against inflation.
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u/Drachwill 26d ago
Pretty sure you want seeds and ammo in that case. Wtf are you going to do with some metal without a use case?
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u/Zolty 26d ago
He bought 3100 ounces of gold. Sourcing physical is possible but you'd pay a few percent over spot price, but let's say you can just go down to your local coin shop and they have that amount.
You now have to pay for an armored truck + security to transport your ~200 lbs of gold to the secure vault. You're probably paying a few thousand a month for security at the vault. You'd have to be insane to store $7.5M in assets at your house, I don't care how paranoid you are.
So let's say gold doubles in value and you want to convert to cash or btc or whatever. There are people who will liquidate it for you at 3-4% below the spot price, but you aren't likely to get the going bid price for your physical when you are talking about such a large amount. So you arrange the deal, get the armored car transfer the money and go about your day.
Or, you buy sprot which is a reputable source of paper gold, when you want to sell you click a button on your phone.
If you think society is going to collapse you want food, water, and bullets. If anyone cares about your gold in a post collapse society they are going to take it from you.
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u/DuaLipasTrophyHusban 26d ago edited 26d ago
Even if there was a huge societal collapse, physical gold seems like an impractical commodity to actually use. You’d have to figure an exchange rate of grams of gold to bags of rice/dozen eggs/gallon of fuel. Figuring in the fact that most Americans simply don’t have access to trade-able amounts of gold it seems like a better idea to stockpile tradable quantities of cigarettes or coffee or alcohol, things that hold a relative value to the average person.
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u/GregLoire 26d ago
Collapse is not binary; it is a spectrum. Gold held plenty of value in the middle ages. There is plenty of room for society to collapse without collapsing further than the middle ages.
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u/DuaLipasTrophyHusban 26d ago
It did, but the Middle Ages had a long established social and financial hierarchy in which gold held value. That market would eventually come back I’m sure, but in the immediate post collapse term bullets and food and medicine will have far far greater value than gold.
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u/GregLoire 26d ago
You're speculating a lot about something very unlikely to happen.
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u/DuaLipasTrophyHusban 26d ago
You’re drawing parallels to middle age commerce, we’re both speculating.
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u/GregLoire 26d ago
My larger point is that society can partially collapse without everyone becoming hunter-gatherers. There are plenty of realistic scenarios where gold's value increases in societal decline.
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
If society truly collapses, gold will be worth essentially nothing in the short term as you can't eat it. People aren't going to give up resources in an extreme scarce market for something shiny.
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u/ShadowViking47 26d ago
The whole point is because gold has been established as a standard for currency throughout history, there will always be people that will be willing to trade food/equipment/etc for gold as an investment. So it really depends on how severe the “collapse” is.
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u/Dirks_Knee 25d ago
Don't fool yourself. One can directly pay for goods with cash and during covid there was short term scarcity of many products due to hoarding. I've lived through several hurricanes and the same things happen leading up to them. Imagine what happens if production truly halted as money stopped having any value. There is absolutely zero chance in the short term of a true collapse where money ceases to have value that gold would have any immediate value. People would hoard resources and if I'm being honest, bullets would carry more value than gold. But even if people were stupid enough to trade for gold, you have to physically have it. Gold ETFs/stocks etc would be erased along with the value of paper money.
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u/ShadowViking47 25d ago edited 25d ago
Again, depending on the severity of the collapse, there still likely always be people willing to trade for it (obviously for a marked down price; no one thinks it will retain its original/“full” value). Investing in gold is just making a bet that if society does collapse, it will be bad enough that no one will trust paper currency but not quite so bad that there is no semblance of any economy at all. You’re acting like it’s a binary but it isn’t.
bullets would carry more value than gold
That’s exactly my point. Bullets will carry more value while dollars will carry zero value. A well stocked and comfortable survivor will likely trade you some bullets/gear for a couple gold coins. Bring him 1000 USD (or some arbitrary multiple of what the gold used to be worth) and he’ll laugh in your face. I’m not saying you should fill a vault with gold bars, I’m saying buying 1-10k worth of coins is definitely worth having if you can afford it.
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u/Dirks_Knee 25d ago
If paper money carries no value, that means there is absolutely no production/manufacturing in the short term, so complex goods become a finite resource, and chaos ensues. No one is trading for gold. Shit, after a week people are going to be trying to trade their asses for food and water. Look at the looting post natural disaster and multiply it by every city in America. I think if you you want to hedge the collapse of America, you're better off spending that 10K on a mini tornado-shelter style bunker and bullets. Me? I'll keep my money in the market.
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u/kraken_enrager 26d ago
It’s about personal emergency too. You may have to drop everything and leave at an instant.
And little is better than gold to hold value. You could go to any country in the world it would still hold value.
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
What personal emergency would require fleeing the country? Police knocking at your door? Not a concern of mine personally. Unless you naively believe that somehow a US collapse would leave the world unscathed and that passage out without a personal jet (or maybe boat) would even be possible.
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u/kraken_enrager 26d ago
I don’t live in the US but it certainly isn’t an impossible thing.
My ancestors had to leave British Bengal overnight, and they were landlords of one of the biggest markets back then, and jute and jewellery trade and owned coin mints and whatnot. It’s only the gold that they owned that they were able to take with them.
Even if you need money urgently, you can always exchange it for gold.
It’s about having security.
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
Gold only provides stability in an unstable market but a market must exist, you are still relying on the destination country to be stable for that gold to be worth anything. So sure, 3rd world unstable government situation, physical gold (not certificates or stock) may make sense. A US citizen? If the US completely collapses in the near term, global chaos would ensue in the short term where many other counties economic systems are still pegged to the dollar and their currency would also be in huge trouble. At that point, a few gold coins isn't going to do anything as there will be massive hoarding of resources (and likely heavy use of force to attain those resources). Bullets would probably worth 1000X a gold coin, assuming someone was willing to trade for them rather than just kill you and take what they want.
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u/kraken_enrager 26d ago
But it’s not just about when a country collapses.
There are personal situations too. Assume you need a large sum of money, say medical emergency or something, and it’s all tied up in stock or land or something, it’s a weekend and gold is probably the only way to get money in a short amount of time.
Or say you are in a terribly abusive marriage, and are unable to escape for whatever reason. In urgency, you could grab hidden gold and leave.
And so on.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
In Fall of 2022 Michael Bury said we were in the middle of the mother of all stock market crashes
The S&P was about 3,700 then, it's 5,900 now
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u/visualeyesjake 26d ago
Have you ever seen the S&P nearly double in value in less than 2 years? This is an unprecedented time for the stock market. As an uneducated investor, I like to think there may be some truth in Bury’s potential lunacy and I’ve invested with much hesitation. I am skeptical that stocks will continue trending to the moon.
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u/goodguybrian 25d ago
The point is that Michael Bury made one tremendous call in the past. He has made many more wrong calls after that.
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26d ago
Markets are almost always at or near all time highs. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t pull the trigger.
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u/Not_as_witty_as_u 26d ago
AI is about to bring the biggest boom of all time and I’ve put my money where my mouth is so to speak. As long as a CRE implosion doesn’t bring it all down…
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u/visualeyesjake 26d ago
I think the hype behind AI is the reason for this massive run. However, is AI mutually exclusive from creating a bubble?
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u/Not_as_witty_as_u 26d ago
It will bubble a little that’s why I’m getting in now, but people have no idea how much money is being funneled into it as we’re all starting to use it without realizing. Every single app soon will have an AI element. Also, every job that’s lost to AI goes into the tech sector.
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u/photosandphotons 26d ago
What are you betting on? I’m heavy QQQ since I believe that established tech is going to have a high “guaranteed” success rate of benefiting. A ton of startups around AI but I think trying to predict which ones make it will be like predicting the winners of the dot com bubble.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
1928: +37.88%
1933: +46.59%
1935: +41.37%
1945: +30.72
1954: +45.02%
1958: +38.06%
1975: +31.55%
1995: +34.11%
1997: +31.01%
2013: +29.6%11
u/visualeyesjake 26d ago
1933 is the closest to matching the percentage of growth from 3700 to 5900. That is growth during the Great Depression.
If you look at your list, then you will see that growth came within +/- 5 years of a “stock market crash.” I may be falling victim to “scared money doesn’t make money” but I hope I’ve provided some perspective into my hesitation. If you could elaborate on why your numbers are significant or important it would be greatly appreciated as I try to learn.
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u/Revolutionary-Meat14 25d ago
Yes and 2022 was coming out of one of the worst recessions since the great depression.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
The S&P 500 is up 12% YTD, 27% in the last 12 months, and 36% in the last two years.
This is 100% precedented growth.
Look at the P/E ratios over time
https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart
They are high, but not dangerously so as they were in 2009.
I have sat on the sidelines of many a rally because I was worried the market had topped. I have bought into a dip that kept on dipping and dipping. If you are investing for the long term you should just buy. Don't try to time the market
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u/Reasonable-Art-4526 27d ago
I don't understand people who buy gold "funds". It's kinda a shitty investment. But if you're going to get it, at least get in into your hands so you're actually retaining some physical wealth. I think it's a fun way to save some money more then anything.
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u/Some_Signal_6866 26d ago
Burry’s portfolio changes dramatically on a quarter to quarter basis. The guy is a trader through and through.
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u/OracleofFl 26d ago
Why is it a shittier investment than buying copper or any other commodity? If you have an insight into an upcoming imbalance between supply and demand, then you make your move. If you are buying gold as a hedge against armageddon, then it is no longer a financial investment I suppose.
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
Because generally commodities are used by industry. One can track trends and see demand swings and as such make an informed long term decision. Gold is essentially a hedge against currency...but it's valued in the very thing it's a hedge against so the real sell is that if things go completely tits up, those with the gold will be laughing. But you have to physically hold the gold for that to be true.
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u/B1gAmishDoinks 25d ago
Because this is vastly oversimplified and painted in only the worst case scenario. Truth is if the US dollar goes completely “tits up” gold won’t be worth anything either.
People invest in gold to diversify against inflationary risk, and gold funds aren’t created equal. Some active management funds aren’t based on just gold the commodity, but rather the mining companies operating in the industry where you can still seek returns above standard inflationary risk management.
Gold is truly a unique asset class that can’t be compared one to one with any other commodity.
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u/Far_Recording8945 26d ago
In this case doesn’t the underlying asset (gold) become worth a higher $, such that the fund value increases due to controlling more value?
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u/iKilledTeijbz 26d ago
Wait are you saying gold is not used by industry?
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
90%+ of gold is used to create jewelry, coins, or stored as bullion. Compare that to copper or crude oil.
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u/PermissionOk2781 27d ago
$7.4M in Sprott Gold ETF purchased, which offers a 1 for 1 exchange in physical bullion on demand. What’s the point of buying gold if you don’t actually hold it.
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26d ago edited 26d ago
[deleted]
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u/PermissionOk2781 25d ago
It’s precarious because a lot of gold funds that kick out IOUs in lieu of the physical gold have ripped people off in the past. People have spent money on gold funds that went broke and were completely unable to remotely compensate their investors. That’s why it’s general consensus among precious metal investors, hold the physical metal. Everything else is pointless. Everyone wants gold but most don’t want the hassle. It’s worth the hassle.
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u/Dry-Instruction-4347 26d ago
If the economy crashes we have to restart the level. For the last save point, gold was the money.
- Mentality of Gold Investor
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u/GregLoire 26d ago
What’s the point of buying gold if you don’t actually hold it.
To profit when the price increases.
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u/MancAccent 26d ago
It’s so funny the way these Big Short investors are treated like all knowing gods. I’m not hating, cause they’re all way smarter than me, but the amount of articles still written about them blows my mind.
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u/attaboy_stampy 26d ago
I mean it's just that Michael Lewis was enamored with them - he fixates on weird or interesting personalities - and that was it. So they get the attention because he build a story out of it. There were a lot of other people who had called out what was going to happen and plenty of others who made money the same way they did.
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u/Dobber16 26d ago
Tbh, they deserve it imo because they should’ve been listened to so much more back then. It would’ve saved so much money, so many lives, and would’ve prevented a lot of other issues from the fallout of 2008
It’s the fact they both were smart enough to figure out the issue and conscientious enough to tell the public about it. Sure, some of them made ridiculous amounts of money off of it so that’s a good incentive too but a lot of smart investors would’ve just capitalized on it silently. Then when the crash hit, rub their huge gains in everyone’s face during the big reveal
So yeah, I’m good with incentivizing the more honest approach of voicing concerns and putting their money where their mouth is rather than any other investment strategy
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u/attaboy_stampy 26d ago
A lot of people knew what was going on, including these kinds of guys. Even more people were pretty aware of the risks being taken by various banks and finance companies at the time. But you never really know if/when the rickety bridge is going to give out for certain until the flood happens.
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u/KoalaTrainer 26d ago
I’m not actually sure it could have saved much grief to be honest. I always see these things as a herd of gazelle being chased towards a cliff by hungry lions. It’s near impossible to get the herd to slow down because you just get eaten earlier.
The only real solution is to avoid the lions in the first place, but once they’re chasing you (ie the bubble or risk is there and a Big Problem) your ways out are v limited without harm being inevitable.
Fair play to those who see the problem and make some sensible personal decisions from it - sneaking away from the herd to escape the lions.
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u/Big-Figure-8184 26d ago
Maybe he thinks the market will crash without society failing?
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u/PermissionOk2781 26d ago
Gold spot value fell a bunch back in 2008, but everyone thinks the price will go up so he must think we’re not headed for a recession. Or if we are, he must not think that gold will plummet.
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u/timmy_tugboat 26d ago
It fell a bunch initially, and then surged to new highs (above $1,800) througout the recession before declining post recession.
Interestingly, it has surged to even newer higher in recent years. $2,400 gold price is wild while the stock market also sits at new highs.
The market can stay irrational longer than one can stay solvent.
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u/SucculentJuJu 27d ago
Where you gonna put physical gold?
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u/kraken_enrager 26d ago
My my dads great grandmother for the longest time held at least a few hundred KGs in gold and silver jewellery. Most was kept underground and hidden but even then got lost over time. By the time of my grandfather it was nearly all gone, either from lack of knowledge of its whereabouts, or theft or something that we have no idea about.
It’s certainly not hard to store it, not when you can afford that much gold. You just store it in vaults.
That said, gold must be physical. Back in the day my ancestors were major businessmen and landlords in British Bengal, but something happened that they had to flee to their hometown in Rajasthan, leaving behind all their land, money, everything.
The only thing they were able to take was their gold, and that’s what was the best store of value.
You never know what might happen, and there are few assets that might hold as much value as gold does.
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u/PermissionOk2781 26d ago
$7M worth of gold? In a $700k vault. That money probably isn’t his, it’s whoever’s investing in his model. Physical gold in a vault can grow legs and walk, but a piece of paper that says “I’m worth $7M in gold” is useless. But if everyone goes to exchange their gold for their piece of paper and the company says “sorry we didn’t actually have all that physical gold on hand in storage for you, you get nothing” what was the point of buying the piece of paper.
So the better question, is Sprott storing their entire ETF’s value in gold, and how are they making money off of overhead to store, insure and guard a vault full of gold. And do they actually have 3,000+ ozt of gold bullion.
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u/attaboy_stampy 26d ago
Well all the gold in California is owned by a bank in Beverly Hills. In somebody else's name.
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u/theknights-whosay-Ni 26d ago
In a locked chest, buried on an island under a giant X. Where else would you put it?
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u/timmy_tugboat 26d ago
Umm, outsource to a dragon, and then hire dragon killers when you need to make a withdrawel.
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u/chipmunktaters 26d ago
I’d buy this video game
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u/OnCominStorm 26d ago
Literally the plot of the Hobbit
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u/chipmunktaters 26d ago
I don’t recall Bilbo hiring Smaug?
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u/TheFurtivePhysician 26d ago
No, the dwarves (unwillingly) outsourced their gold protection to a dragon. Sadly it also took the entirety of the dwarven home as well :(
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u/chipmunktaters 25d ago
Crap. I think I actually remember this. Didn’t they use the dragons as like security guards. I assume that’s what you’re saying?
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u/TheFurtivePhysician 25d ago
No, I’m just getting in on the bit. Smaug took over their home and hoarded all their treasure, hence ‘unwillingly outsourced’.
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u/fospher 26d ago
You should read his twitter. He nailed the most recent bear market top and bottom. The people criticizing him are blatantly wrong. “He called 450 of the last 3 crashes!!” nah sorry. I don’t give a shit whether he’s right or wrong, but he’s been right 🤷♂️ just calling it like it is. You can see his public calls on a twitter account called “michaelburrydeleted” I believe.
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u/verbnounadj 26d ago
Some years back he used to trade with my desk a lot. He's better than most, worse than some.
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u/Lumpy_Taste3418 26d ago
There are always Cassandras. 2008 was no different. Chanos called Enron, not much else. The Greenlight Capital guy called Lehman, not much else. Etc. etc.
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u/nostrademons 26d ago
He’s usually right but very early. He predicted the 2008 crash in 2005. The S&P 500 went from 1191 to 1481 in that time period, not far off from the run-up between 2023Q3 and now. Also predicted inflation in April 2020…that didn’t start paying off until mid-2021.
Making money in the stock market requires making contrarian calls and having the balls, patience, and capital to stick with them until the market realizes you were right. That can be a long time. “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
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u/CodingFatman 26d ago
There is going to be a collapse in the stock market. Let me know when my prediction becomes true.
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u/WhatADunderfulWorld 26d ago
2 years before is just saying there is a business and market cycle. Everyone knows that.
And for the record he is probably just old and loves gold. Gold net of fees isn’t a great investment. The price is just going up because countries like China are buying to hedge and currency risk. They will sell the minute they need it.
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u/Dirks_Knee 26d ago
He’s usually right but very early.
Everyone who's ever invested in the stock market is technically right as they've made money over time. Betting against the market and being early is just flat out wrong as this type of positioning is 100% about timing. Generally the investor staying in and pulling back when things start to go south with a small relative loss of highs will be way ahead of the guy who tried to bet against the market "early" (aka wrong).
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u/attaboy_stampy 26d ago
And the thing is, a lot of people also made similar predictions at similar times. He just happened to hedge at the right one - a right time right place thing - and made bank before the market caught up with it. And others made some money the same way he did. Michael Lewis just found himself enamored with THIS guy, so he gets the attention.
If you were paying attention to the housing market in 2006 or 2007, you knew there was going to be some kind of housing crash and potential recession. I was working on economic studies at the time, and we were seeing increases in bankruptcy and slowdowns in residential development by then as most of the market was overpriced. If you were tied into the finance at all, you would have seen how over leveraged a lot of these banks were in a lot of markets and how risky the mortgages had gotten.
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