‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry reshuffles portfolio, adds hedges on China holdings

Michael Burry, best known for calling the subprime mortgage crisis, made a slew of changes in his portfolio last quarter including what appears to be a hedge on his sizable bet on Chinese internet stocks. Burry, who now manages hedge fund Scion Asset Management, boosted his stakes in a few Chinese internet companies’ ADRs, according to a regulatory filing. The trader added to his Alibaba bet by 29% to a stake worth more than $21 million, making it his largest position at the end of September. The widely followed investor also doubled his stake in JD.com , pushing it to become Scion’s second biggest holding, worth $20 million. Burry also increased his stake in Chinese search engine Baidu by 67% to a bet worth $13.2 million at the end of the third quarter. While loading up on these ADRs, Burry took a significant amount of put options against these names, likely as some sort of hedge. Investors profit from puts when the underlying securities fall in prices. But when paired with long holdings, they can be used to offset any short-term losses expected in the shares. As of the end of September, Burry owned millions dollars worth of put contracts against Alibaba, JD.com and Baidu, with unknown value, strike price, or expiry, according to the filing. Chinese equities got a boost in September after the government signaled a flood of stimulus measures in a bid to revive growth and avoid continued stagnation in the world’s second-largest economy. However, many stocks gave up some of those gains as officials have yet to announce much concrete fiscal support. Burry shot to fame by betting against mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 global financial crisis . Burry was depicted in Michael Lewis’ book ” The Big Short ” and the subsequent Oscar-winning movie of the same name. Outside of these Chinese companies, Burry added to his bets on payment processing company Shift4 Payments , American Coastal Insurance Corp as well as managed care firm Molina Healthcare . Money managers with more than $100 million in assets are required to disclose long positions with the Securities and Exchange Commission 45 days after a quarter ends. Active traders such as Burry could have already changed their positions by the time filings come out.