Been following Michael Burry's recent moves pretty closely, and there's something interesting happening here that most people are probably missing.



So for context, Burry made his name shorting the housing market before 2008 - you know, the whole Big Short thing. Well, this guy just pulled off another contrarian play that honestly caught a lot of people off guard. Earlier this year, his fund Scion basically cleared out almost their entire portfolio. Like, nearly everything gone. Most people thought he was crazy at the time.

Turns out he knew something. That April market crash everyone's still talking about? Burry had already positioned himself to avoid most of it. Classic contrarian move.

But here's where it gets interesting for Michael Burry's portfolio strategy going into the second quarter. The filings showed he completely flipped the script and went on a buying spree. Not just any buying spree though - he went after two stocks that got absolutely destroyed this year, both down over 40%.

First one is UnitedHealth, the massive US healthcare insurer. The stock got hammered because management basically miscalculated medical costs by like 6.5 billion dollars. Yeah, you read that right. They had to slash their earnings guidance from around 30 bucks per share down to 16. On top of that, the DOJ is poking around their Medicare billing practices. Most investors ran for the hills.

But Burry and his team saw something different. They grabbed about 20,000 shares directly and also loaded up on call options - betting the stock bounces back. And they weren't alone. Warren Buffett and other big money managers also started buying the dip. The thinking seems to be that UnitedHealth still has serious pricing power as the largest healthcare insurer in the country, and these problems are probably temporary.

The second pick in Michael Burry's portfolio moves was Lululemon, which got crushed even worse - down almost 47% for the year. The luxury athletic brand has been dealing with a perfect storm: rising competition, tariff headwinds, consumers tightening up on luxury spending, and the whole COVID exercise boom finally cooling down.

Yet Burry still went in, buying 50,000 shares plus another 400,000 through call options. Interesting timing because Lulu actually beat earnings estimates in their most recent quarter. Management did lower guidance though, citing a "dynamic macroenvironment" - which is basically corporate speak for "we're not sure what happens next."

But here's the thing: Lululemon's balance sheet is actually solid. They've got 1.3 billion in cash, no debt, and they're planning some price increases to handle tariff impacts. At 13.5 times forward earnings, Burry seems to be betting that most of the bad news is already priced in.

What's fascinating about this Michael Burry portfolio positioning is the pattern. He's not buying lottery tickets here. He's buying established companies that got beat down, have solid fundamentals underneath, and probably have room to recover once sentiment shifts. That's the contrarian playbook - buy when everyone else is selling stocks that still have real value.

Obviously both of these positions come with risks. UnitedHealth has real operational challenges to work through, and Lululemon faces ongoing consumer headwinds. But if you're thinking like Burry, you're asking whether these problems are temporary or permanent. His Michael Burry portfolio moves suggest he thinks they're temporary.

Worth keeping an eye on how these plays develop over the next couple quarters.
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