To The Moon

🐯 Hey Tigers!

Breaking news from the "Big Short" — Michael Burry just closed his December 2026 put options on $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ and $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$. Capitulation? Not quite. His short book still carries over 21% of his portfolio in AI names.

Here's what actually happened, why he did it now, and what it means for the AI bubble debate.

🎯 The Current Move: What Exactly Did Burry Do?

On September 9, the Michael Burry Stock Tracker account on X reported that Scion Asset Management had completely closed its December 2026 put options on both $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ and $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$. He did not roll these positions into later-dated contracts.

In his September 4 Substack post titled "Trading Post," Burry explained the reasoning: he was "pulling back on exposures across the portfolio" and had "pulled in risk." He also noted he now has "some cash that I am happy to sit on" while watching how markets develop, adding: "This will be an interesting market this fall."

The key nuance: this was not a full short-covering event. Burry trimmed near-term bearish exposure but retains longer-dated puts on $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ (2027) and $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$, and keeps large short stock positions in $Oracle(ORCL)$, $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$, $NEBIUS(NBIS)$, $NVIDIA(NVDA)$, and $iShares Semiconductor ETF(SOXX)$.

⏰Why He Shorted NVDA and PLTR — And Why the Numbers Are Extraordinary

Burry's bearish case on $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ rests on three pillars: he doubts the AI capex boom will generate matching revenue, he's called some of the financing behind AI infrastructure spending "fugazi" — fictitious or fake — and he argues rapid chip development could make today's cutting-edge hardware obsolete faster than investors expect.

On $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$, the thesis is simpler: valuation. At 144.9x trailing P/E and 133.5x forward P/E, $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ is priced for perfection. His original November 2025 put position carried a notional value of around $912 million, though he later clarified he'd spent just $9.2 million on premiums. $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ CEO Alex Karp didn't hold back on CNBC, calling the move "bats—crazy" and framing it as Burry "putting a short on AI" itself.

The problem for Burry's thesis: $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$'s numbers keep backing up Karp.

• Q2 2026 revenue: +93% YoY (U.S. revenue: +115%)

• Operating margin: 46.2%, more than double last year's 19.9%

• Rule of 40 score: 145%

• FY2026 guidance raised to $7.656B midpoint — 71% growth

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$ tells a similar story:

• Data center revenue: $89B, +117% YoY

• FY2028 revenue expected to grow ~70%

• Chinese tech firms have ordered 2M+ H200 chips for 2026 — nearly triple NVIDIA's current stock of ~700K units

⏰ So Why Close the December Puts Now?

Three reasons, and none of them mean Burry changed his mind about AI valuations.

1. Time decay. December 2026 puts are now only ~3 months from expiration. Options theta accelerates sharply in the final quarter. Holding short-dated puts against stocks near all-time highs is a losing game unless a catalyst arrives quickly. Selling before the decay cliff is basic risk management.

2. Liquidity preservation. Burry explicitly said he has cash he's "happy to sit on." After a brutal period for short sellers in AI names, preserving dry powder for what he calls "an interesting market this fall" is a rational move.

3. Portfolio-wide de-risking. Reports indicate Burry trimmed many positions, not just NVDA and PLTR puts. He covered his Tesla and Applied Materials shorts entirely. The move was systematic, not targeted.

🎬 The Legend: From Neurologist to "The Big Short"

To understand why this move matters, you need to know who Michael Burry is. Born on June 19, 1971, in San Jose, California, he lost his left eye to retinoblastoma at age 2 and has worn a prosthetic eye ever since. He studied economics and pre-med at UCLA, then earned his M.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1997, completing a neurology residency at Stanford.

But during medical school and residency, he spent his evenings analyzing markets. In 2000, with family money, he founded Scion Capital. His first major win came quickly: he shorted overvalued dot-com stocks while buying deep value plays.

Then came the trade that would make him immortal.

Between 2003 and 2005, Burry studied subprime mortgage bonds in detail. He identified declining borrower quality, loosened credit standards, and excessive dependence on rising real estate prices. On May 19, 2005, he executed his first credit default swap trade — $60 million with Deutsche Bank. He kept buying CDS protection from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and others.

Investors pushed back hard. He had to gate the fund to prevent redemptions during the buildup. But by mid-2007, subprime began collapsing exactly as predicted.

In 2015, his story became the film "The Big Short." Christian Bale portrayed him — the only character whose name was not changed from real life. Bale met with Burry for a marathon nine-hour session before production, studying his barefoot office demeanor, metal music taste, and eccentric habits. Bale later said: "Mike does not interact with other people very much, but he's one of the most brilliant, heartfelt and sincere men I have ever come across."

📊 The Track Record: Wins, Losses, and the GME Miss

Burry's career is a study in contrarian conviction — and the occasional humbling miss.

The Wins: Beyond subprime, he shorted Cathie Wood's $ARK Innovation ETF(ARKK)$ fund from Q2 2021 to Q2 2022, catching a 69.5% collapse (from $130.78 to $39.88). His TipRanks track record shows a +390.52% gain since January 2016, a Sharpe Ratio of 3.65, and a #80 ranking out of 488 hedge fund managers.

The Losses: In mid-2019, Scion bought roughly 3 million $GameStop(GME)$ shares — about 3% of shares outstanding — believing the company was undervalued. He disclosed the position via a Schedule 13D in April 2020, then sold out in Q4 2020 at around $3.38 a share, just weeks before the meme-stock squeeze sent it up 40x. Burry admitted the miss himself in a December 2025 Substack post, calling it the biggest short squeeze he'd ever sat out.

He also built a $534 million $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ short via puts in Q1 2021, which grew to over $731 million by Q2. His thesis: Tesla's $646 billion market cap and negative EBIT looked absurd next to 32 automakers earning $102 billion in EBIT combined, for barely more market value. Tesla kept climbing, and he closed the position by November 2021 — later calling it "merely a short-term trading strategy, not a long-term view."

And the calls that never landed:

• Jan 2017: warned of a "global financial meltdown"

• Sep 2019: called ETFs "the next CDO"

• Nov 2022: predicted an "extended multiyear recession"

• Jan 2023: said a U.S. recession was "already a done deal"

🔮 Forward Look: What to Watch Next

🔑 Key Catalysts for Fall 2026

• 📅 Fall 2026 earnings season — Will AI capex guidance hold? Burry says "interesting market"

• Burry's cash position — "Happy to sit on" suggests he's waiting for a specific entry point

• 📊 $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ 2027 $50 puts — Still active; this is where the real conviction lives

• 🏭 $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ Vera Rubin ramp — 20% of DC revenue in Q3; execution will test both bulls and bears

• 🌐 China H200 demand — 2M+ ordered vs 700K in stock; supply-demand gap supports NVDA near-term

• $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ puts — Burry's broad market hedge remains; this is his "systemic risk" bet

• 💰 Substack revenue — $39/month newsletter with ~8.5K paid subscribers generates ~$307K/month; Burry has financial runway

🐯 The Bottom Line: A Tactical Retreat, Not a Surrender

Closing his December 2026 $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ and $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ puts is a tactical retreat, not a strategic surrender. Burry is managing time decay, preserving liquidity, and keeping his core AI-valuation skepticism alive through longer-dated instruments and short stock positions that still make up over 21% of his portfolio.

This is the man who made 489.34% during the 2008 financial crisis, who shorted ARKK into a 69.5% collapse, and who openly admitted missing the $GameStop(GME)$ squeeze by weeks. Track record aside, he still knows when to step back.

The real question isn't whether Burry is right about AI — it's whether the market can hold up 144x P/E valuations on $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ and a $5.4 trillion market cap on $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ if growth decelerates even slightly. The ECB's August 2026 blog put it more bluntly, asking whether this is "rational enthusiasm or the next dot-com bubble."

Burry's made his bet. He's just buying himself more time to be right.

As he put it himself: "This will be an interesting market this fall." 🐯

🐯 Tiger's Corner: Your Turn!

Do you think $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ and $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ can keep growing into their valuations, or is Burry's skepticism still the smart trade?
Share your take below. Thoughtful comments may receive Tiger Coins! 🪙

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