Michael Burry, best known for calling out the subprime mortgage crisis, invested heavily in physical gold trusts, his biggest bet, in the first quarter, a new regulatory filing shows. Burry, who now runs hedge fund Scion Asset Management, bought more than 440,000 shares of Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS) in the first quarter, worth more than $10 million. This closed-end fund holds physical gold bullion assets. Gold trusts trade at a discount to their net asset value. PHYS is selling at a 1.67% discount to its net asset value, compared with a 52-week average discount of 1.57%, according to a service operated by Nuveen. The largest discount on PHYS trades over the past 52 weeks was 2.52%. It has never traded above net asset value in the past year. Gold prices have hit a series of new highs recently amid accelerating inflation and heightened geopolitical risks. The famous investor also increased his bets on Chinese e-commerce companies JD.com and Alibaba last quarter. As of the end of March, his major holdings also included HCA Healthcare, Citigroup and Block. Burry rose to prominence by shorting mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 global financial crisis. Barry was portrayed in Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short” and the subsequent Oscar-winning film of the same name. Fund managers with more than $100 million in assets must disclose their long positions to the SEC 45 days after the end of the quarter. Active traders like Barry may have changed their stance by the time the documents were released.
