Although they don’t always get it right, professional investors — particularly those that have attained mainstream popularity, are influential for a reason. Every day retail investors and traders turn to them for advice and copy their moves in a bid to replicate their successes.
Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ fame predicted the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and profited millions from doing so. He has remained an active investor through his hedge fund, Scion Asset Management.
In recent times, Burry has shifted his attention away from the United States. At present, most of his investments are focused on China. In September of 2024, the value of his portfolio shot up on account of the short-lived Chinese stimulus — and although prices quickly receded, Michael Burry still made an estimated return of 74.24% last year.
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The start of 2025 has certainly been auspicious for the renowned investor — his second-biggest holding, JD (NASDAQ: JD), has rallied by 12.49% since the year began. On Friday, January 17, the stock closed at $39.
Michael Burry’s JD bet starts the year off strongly
Michael Burry’s portfolio contains 500,000 JD shares, according to Scion Asset Management’s latest 13-F filing, which was made public on November 14, 2024. At the beginning of the year, at a price of $34.67 per share, the stake was worth roughly $17,115,000.
Now that the price of JD stock has seen a 12.49% surge, Burry’s stake in the company is worth approximately $19,252,663 — equating to a $2,137,663 profit made in just 20 days.
So, what drove the surge? JD has recently received a new wave of analyst support. Jefferies researcher Thomas Chong increased his price forecast from $54 to $60, maintaining a prior ‘Buy’ rating. The analyst highlighted that Jefferies expects outperformance from the company’s next quarterly report, due March 5.
In addition, both JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) and Citigroup (NYSE: C) placed JD on positive catalyst watch. Citi cited the company’s first-mover advantage in trade-in programs — while JPMorgan expects revenue growth and margins to outperform consensus estimates in Q4.
Last week, the business introduced a gifting feature on its mobile app, which allows users to pay for and send products to one another, in a bid to keep up with similar features introduced by competitors.
Finally, as China has met its ambitious 5% GDP growth target for 2024, Chinese stocks in general have been trading higher as we enter the fourth week of January.
Featured image via Shutterstock
