(Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog)

During the financial crisis of 2008, his massive bets against the housing market made him incredibly rich, and now he is making another “big short”.

According to CNN, Burry has bet over 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash…

Michael Burry, the “Big Short” investor who became famous for correctly predicting the epic collapse of the housing market in 2008, has bet more than $1.6 billion on a Wall Street crash.

Burry is making his bearish bets against the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, according to Security Exchange Commission filings released Monday. Burry’s fund, Scion Asset Management, bought $866 million in put options (that’s the right to sell an asset at a particular price) against a fund that tracks the S&P 500 and $739 million in put options against a fund that tracks the Nasdaq 100.

Burry is using more than 90% of his portfolio to bet on a market downturn, according to the filings.

Does he know something that the rest of us don’t?

If he is wrong, he will look like a fool. But if he is right, he will be a legend.

Michael Burry places a huge leveraged short position on the stock market with put options.

The Big Short Version 2.0 pic.twitter.com/8SHtZ0r4V9

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 14, 2023

Without a doubt, the stock market is ripe for a crash.

So far in 2023, the S&P is up about 16 percent and the Nasdaq is up about 38 percent…

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 have both notched big gains so far this year. They’re up nearly 16% and 38%, respectively.

In the mid-2000s, Burry was famous for placing a wager against the housing market and profited handsomely from the subprime lending crisis and the collapse of numerous major financial entities in 2008. The event was chronicled by Michael Lewis in his bestseller “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” and later adapted into a film where Burry was played by Christian Bale.

This stock market rally has been happening even though the overall economy has been really struggling. As economic activity has slowed down, demand for trucking services has slumped, and at this point the Cass Freight Index is down 8.9 percent on a year-over-year basis…

In terms of shipment volume in the for-hire market, the Cass Freight Index – which is concentrated on trucking but includes rail and other modes of transportation – fell again in July, to the worst July since July 2020, and July 2016, which had been in the middle of another freight recession (fat red line in the chart below).

Year-over-year, the index was down 8.9%, and compared to the peak in this cycle, in May 2021, it was down 12%.

And UPS and FedEx are both reporting that demand for package delivery is way down as well…

We’ve heard similar messages from UPS and FedEx. UPS reported a 9.9% drop in daily package volume for Q2, with June volume down 12.2%. FedEx reported an 18% drop in average daily shipments in its quarter ended May 31.

The economy is really struggling right now, and so the stock market should not be booming.

But for the moment, the rich are getting richer while homelessness absolutely explodes all over the nation.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The Biden administration’s fight against homelessness is faltering ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

A new Wall Street Journal report reveals the number of Americans ending up on the streets is happening at a “record rate” despite ‘Bidenomics‘ being touted as an economic savior for the middle class. Every working-class folk understands Biden’s policies have been absolutely horrendous — two years of negative real wages forced many to rack up insurmountable credit card debt during the highest interest rate environment in a generation while draining personal savings — all to make ends meet, like putting food on the table and paying rent. Compound this with the worst housing affordability period in decades (maybe relief in 2H24 or ’25), and it’s not hard to understand why the homelessness crisis is beginning to spiral out of control for Democrats.

I could go on and on about the dire state of the U.S. economy, but I am not going to repeat all of the statistics that I have shared in other articles over the past few weeks.  if you are interested in seeing those numbers, this is where you can find them…

• “9 Signs That The U.S. Consumer Is About To Break”
• “7 Trends Which Indicate That Economic Disaster Is Approaching Very Rapidly”
• “10 Signs That The Mainstream Media Is Not Telling You The Truth About The Economy”

Of course it isn’t just the United States that is experiencing an economic slowdown. As Jim Rickards has aptly noted, “major economies are falling into the ditch” all over the globe right now…

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that we’re looking at a global recession, if not a global financial crisis. These are highly unusual. It’s often the case that one or more major economies are in recession while others display growth and help pull the weak performers out of the ditch.

But today, we’re facing a case where, one after the other, all of the major economies are falling into the ditch.

So many of the things that we have been warned about for a very long time are starting to happen right in front of our eyes.

We are clearly headed for very big economic trouble, and that should be apparent to everyone at this point. Michael Burry is planning to make a giant pile of money when the stock market finally crashes just like he did in 2008.

Will he be correct? I don’t know, but you certainly cannot accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth is.

Sound off about this on our Economic Collapse Substack.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

#1 The IMF: “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even countries that are not in recession, it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people”

#2 Bloomberg: “Economists say there is a 7-in-10 likelihood that the US economy will sink into a recession next year, slashing demand forecasts and trimming inflation projections in the wake of massive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”

#3 The World Bank: “As central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates in response to inflation, the world may be edging toward a global recession in 2023 and a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm, according to a comprehensive new study by the World Bank.”

#4 Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: “We’re going to have a shallow recession”

#5 Mohamed El-Erian: “Many ‘high-conviction’ U.S. recession calls are immediately coupled with the assertion that it’ll be ‘short and shallow.’ Reminds me of the behavioral trap ‘transitory inflation’ proponents fell into last year”

#6 Nouriel Roubini: “No, this is not going to be a short and shallow recession, it’s going to be deep and protracted”

#7 Larry Summers: “My sense is that it’s much harder than many people think to achieve a soft landing”

#8 Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: “Economic growth is slowing,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at the same conference. “When I talk to our clients, they sound extremely cautious.”

#9 Charles Schwab & Co.’s Liz Ann Sonders: “We have to take our medicine still, meaning a weaker economy and a weaker labor market. The question is, is it better to take our medicine sooner or later?”

#10 BlackRock: “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. They are deliberately causing recessions by overtightening policy to try to rein in inflation”

#11 Michael Burry: “Inflation peaked. But it is not the last peak of this cycle. We are likely to see CPI lower, possibly negative in 2H 2023, and the US in recession by any definition. Fed will cut and government will stimulate. And we will have another inflation spike. It’s not hard.”

As you can see, there is a general consensus that things will be bad in 2023, but there is disagreement about just how deep the coming economic downturn will turn out to be.

If the worst of these forecasts turn out to be accurate, that will actually be incredibly good news.

Because the reality of what we will be facing in 2023 is likely to be significantly worse than any of these experts are currently projecting.

With each passing day, we continue to get even more numbers that indicate that big trouble is ahead.

For example, we just learned that luxury home sales absolutely cratered during the months of September, October and November…

Sales of luxury homes fell 38.1% year over year during the three months ending November 30, 2022, the biggest decline on record, according to a new report from Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage. That outpaced the record 31.4% decline in sales of non-luxury homes. Redfin’s data goes back to 2012.

The luxury market and the overall housing market lost momentum in 2022 due to many of the same factors: inflation, relatively high interest rates, a sagging stock market and recession fears.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And we all remember what the housing crash of 2008 ultimately did to the financial markets.

Normally, the beginning of a calendar year is a time for optimism.  As we look forward to a completely clean slate, it can be easy to forget the difficulties of the previous 12 months.

But this year things seem completely different. On some level, just about everyone can feel that very challenging times are ahead of us.

Decades of very foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way. Our leaders tried very hard to keep the party going for as long as possible, and to a certain extent they were quite successful in doing so.

Our politicians in Washington kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that definitely delayed our day of reckoning.

And the Federal Reserve kept the financial markets artificially propped up for years by endlessly pumping giant mountains of fresh cash into the system. But such foolish measures only made our long-term problems even worse, and now our leaders are losing control.

All of the “mega-bubbles” are starting to burst, and the system is beginning to fall apart all around us. It is time to turn out the lights, because the party is over.

We all had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now the bill is due and an extraordinary amount of pain is ahead.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.