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Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ fame and Temasek add JD.com, Alibaba holdings even as Ray Dalio offloads China stocks

  • JD.com and Alibaba are now the biggest holdings at Burry’s Scion Asset Management
  • Bridgewater recorded a 58 per cent drop in the value of its equity stakes in 45 US-listed Chinese companies in its latest 13F regulatory filing

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Michael Burry attends a screening of ‘The Big Short’ in New York in this file photo from November 2015. Burry increased his stake in JD.com by 233 per cent and doubled his bet on Alibaba in the first quarter of this year. Photo: AFP
Jiaxing Li

The world’s biggest institutional investors are at odds over Chinese stocks just months after singing from the same song sheet.

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While Michael Burry, the money manager of “The Big Short” fame, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek have been building up their positions in Chinese stocks, China bull Ray Dalio has continued to dial down his exposure amid geopolitical tensions.

Burry, who predicted the 2008 housing crash in the United States, bulked up his stake in JD.com by 233 per cent to 250,000 shares and doubled his bet on Alibaba Group Holding – this newspaper’s parent firm – to 100,000 shares in the first quarter of this year, his latest 13F filing shows. The two Chinese internet giants are now the biggest holdings at Burry’s Scion Asset Management, accounting for 20 per cent of its US$107 million stock portfolio, the filing shows.

Temasek has similarly boosted its stake in JD.com by 79 per cent to more than 1.6 million shares, and bumped up its stake in Alibaba by 4 per cent to more than 9.5 million shares. In all, Temasek held a total of eight Chinese stocks worth US$2.3 billion as of March 31, up 5 per cent from the end of last year.

Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund founded by long-term China bull Ray Dalio, meanwhile, continued to trim its Chinese stock holdings in the January-to-March quarter. It sold all 702,473 shares in Baidu that it owned, while slashing stakes in e-commerce platform PDD, Tesla challenger Nio and Weibo by between 35 and 45 per cent.
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