Belegde boterham schreef op 31 maart 2016 08:48:
The ironie is dat de hoofdpersoon van de The big short, dit kwartaal een fonds heeft opgericht met Apple als een van de grootste posities.
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Dr. Michael Burry, whose spellbinding all-in bet against the subprime mortgage market reaped a fortune and was made famous in the book and film The Big Short, released his new firm’s first public portfolio in the fourth quarter and showed some unexpected positions.
Burry retired his fund, Scion Capital, in 2008 after his early recognition and short of the subprime lending market that virtually nobody had understood for years proved correct. From 2000 through the crash of 2008, Burry earned his Scion investors 489.34% in returns, according to Vanity Fair. In Scion’s last quarterly letter to investors, Burry explained how he spotted the trouble that led to the financial crisis.
“My father, a mechanical engineer, used to dismiss random chance,” Burry said. “The harder you work, the luckier you get, he’d say. I am convinced there is hardly a better rule by which to live.”
Scion Asset Management, Burry’s new fund, opened in 2013 in Cupertino, California. Its COO is Zaeed Kalsheker, who worked for Burry’s previous fund. By Dec. 31, its assets under management presumably reached $100,000, the regulatory threshold for investment firms to disclose their long holdings publicly.
Burry’s fourth-quarter long portfolio for Scion Asset Management listed 13 stocks with a total value of $74 million. Roughly eight years after the sector almost fell apart in the financial crisis, Burry has invested 32.4% of the portfolio in financial services stocks as his largest weighted sector. The next in size are technology at 28.9% and health care at 23.7%.
Burry has five financial positions: ACE Ltd. (NYSE:ACE), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE:BK) and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE:PNC).
A value investor, Burry said in 2008 that financial institutions were difficult to value due primarily to share dilution accompanying emergency capital injections and continual write-downs related to risky off-balance sheet investments. The quality of financial statements, he said, “was “every bit as inscrutable as those from Enron circa 2001,” and less leverage and lower returns would persist over the long term.
“Any investment thesis in these companies must therefore be based upon modest returns on a substantially reduced equity base. I imagine the shares of these companies, in most cases, will become very boring before they become attractive again,” he said.
Banks have looked more attractive to value investors in the first quarter as many appear inexpensive with low P/B ratios. In particular, Bank of America trades below book value with a ratio of 0.6 and Citigroup with 0.61.
As his top position, Burry has a REIT, NexPoint Residential Trust (NYSE:NXRT), followed by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). He also has one energy bet, CNX Coal Resources LP (NYSE:CNXC).
www.gurufocus.com/news/403645/dr-mich...