Hedge fund manager Michael Burry, known for his prescient comments ahead of the 2008 U.S. housing market crash, is closing out put option positions in semiconductor stocks while also investing in Warner Bros. in the fourth quarter of 2023. The company said in a securities report released on Wednesday that it had purchased shares in Brothers Discovery. showed that.
Bally’s Scion Asset Management added 375,000 shares of CNN’s parent company stock during the quarter.
Other new additions include 200,000 shares of restaurant software company Toast Inc., 225,000 shares of discount retail chain Big Lots Inc. and 154,142 shares of Jenn Restaurant Group.
Meanwhile, the fund exited a put option position in the iShares Semiconductor ETF that had a notional amount of $47.4 million in the third quarter of 2023.
Put options benefit from declines in the underlying stock, but it’s not clear whether the position is part of a larger trade.
The ETF rose 8.7% in the fourth quarter.
Barry also exited a put position in Bookings Holdings and a 400,000-share position in automaker Stellantis during the quarter.
The positions were disclosed in securities commitments known as 13-Fs, which hedge funds and other institutional investors file at the end of each quarter.
Although they are retrospective and do not reveal current holdings or short positions, the filings are one of the few ways to view a sensitive fund’s portfolio.
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, which is reportedly considering a merger with Paramount Global, have fallen 15% since the beginning of the year, and Big Lots stock has fallen nearly 55% in the same period. Toast Inc.’s stock rose about 7.5%, while Jenn Restaurant Group’s stock rose more than 13%.
Barry’s biggest holdings overall are Alibaba Group Holdings and JD.com, both of which have fallen more than 6% since the beginning of the year due to concerns about slowing growth in China’s economy.
