Pundit profile
Michael Burry
Investor who made his name shorting subprime mortgages before the 2008 crash, ran Scion Asset Management until he wound it down in late 2025, and now publishes market, bubble and single-stock calls in his paid newsletter Cassandra Unchained.
Showing the overall score and every scored prediction.
Score
Calibration
Were they as right as they were sure?
The surer someone sounds, the more often they should be right.
When they sounded confident, only 45% of those 11 calls came true.
Confident · 11 calls
45% came true
“will,” “going to,” “likely,” “I expect”
Leaning · 1 call
100% came true
“I think,” “my bet,” “leaning toward”
Where we looked
We scored 12 of the 236 predictions we gathered (5%). The rest are published as counts only, not as individual pages.
Where the scored predictions come from
- By format
- Tweet 9 · Blog 1 · Other 1 · Speech 1
- Top sources
- web.archive.org 5 · cbsnews.com 1 · fortune.com 1 · 5 from other sources
Sources searched
Cassandra Unchained, his own newsletter
The paid newsletter Michael Burry launched in November 2025 after winding down his hedge fund, and which he calls his sole focus. It is where essentially all of his current market calls now appear, several times a week, ranging from long single-stock write-ups to same-day trade logs. Every piece published from launch through late July 2026 was listed and dated.
- How many there are
- 83
- How many we read
- 83
- Time span
- 2025-11-23 to 2026-07-25
- How we sampled
- This is a complete count, not a sample: every one of the 83 pieces published between 23 November 2025 and 25 July 2026 was listed and examined, so no shortlisting vocabulary and no random spot-check were needed. Roughly one piece in six is published free and can be read in full. The rest sit behind a $39-a-month subscription, so what is public for those is the headline, the subtitle and the opening passage, which is usually where he states the thesis but rarely where he pins down the price level or the date. Anything quoted from a paid piece therefore comes either from its free opening or from an outlet that quoted him directly.
His posts on X, the archived 2020-2021 stretch
An archive of 855 of Burry's own posts on X, rebuilt from public web snapshots taken before he deleted them. It covers March 2020 to June 2021, which was his loudest forecasting stretch: the inflation warnings, the Tesla short, the bitcoin and meme-stock calls and the 'greatest speculative bubble of all time' posts all fall inside it. The archive preserves his exact wording and the date of each post, which is why this window can be treated as a complete record when almost none of the rest of his time on X can.
- How many there are
- 855
- How many we read
- 855
- Time span
- 2020-03-23 to 2021-06-16
- How we sampled
- All 855 posts were screened, each one matched in full against a deliberately broad forecast vocabulary: commitment words (will, won't, going to, expect, predict, forecast, bet, I think, should, inevitable), timing words (soon, imminent, within, this year, next, coming, decade, a named year or quarter), and outcome words (collapse, crash, boom, recession, default, surge, plunge, bubble, inflation, deflation, top, bottom, bankrupt, unsustainable, a dollar figure or a percentage). That matched 484 posts, every one of which goes on the list to be mined. Because the vocabulary is a memory aid rather than a filter, 30 posts were then drawn at random from the 371 it did not match and read start to finish; one of them turned out to contain a forward-looking claim worth chasing, a rate of about three in a hundred. Applied to the whole unmatched remainder that implies roughly a dozen more posts missed, so about 97 of every 100 forecasts in this window were caught.
His posts on X, everything outside that stretch
Everything Burry has posted on X from 2011 to today apart from the archived fifteen months. He deletes his own posts within days as a matter of habit and has shut the account down outright several times, so no complete list of what he said there exists anywhere, not even on X. What survives is what reporters and fan-run screenshot accounts captured before it vanished.
- How many there are
- unknown, and no complete list is obtainable because he deletes his own posts
- How many we read
- 18
- Time span
- 2011 to 2026-07
- How we sampled
- This channel could not be listed end to end, so it was worked year by year from 2011 to today through news coverage, through his known positions company by company, and through the fan-run accounts that screenshot him before he deletes. Only posts that a reputable outlet reproduced word for word were carried forward; where a report only paraphrased him, that paraphrase is kept as background and is never dressed up as his quote, and screenshots stay unconfirmed until the wording can be matched to a snapshot or a direct quotation. Because what survives is what made news, this channel leans toward his loudest and most dramatic calls and under-represents his routine ones. No shortlisting vocabulary or random check applies here, since there was no full list to shortlist from.
Podcast appearances
Burry has almost never given interviews. His own site, the major finance and long-form interview shows, and the podcast directories were searched for appearances across the whole period, and one substantive appearance turned up: 'Michael Burry Speaks', recorded with Michael Lewis for Against the Rules and published at the start of December 2025, which broke roughly a decade of silence, together with its rebroadcast on the Financial Times' Unhedged.
- How many there are
- 2
- How many we read
- 2
- Time span
- 2011 to 2026-07, with the only appearance found dated December 2025
- How we sampled
- Both known appearances were taken, so this is a complete count rather than a sample and no shortlisting vocabulary or random check applies. Neither show publishes a full written transcript, so his words come from the episode audio and the published episode notes, and anything that cannot be pinned to the audio is left as background. If an appearance exists that neither his own site nor the show directories list, it is not covered here.
Recorded talks and broadcast appearances
Burry runs no video channel, posts no video to his newsletter, and appears on camera roughly once every several years. Three recordings exist inside this period: a sit-down for Bloomberg's Risk Takers in July 2011, his June 2012 commencement address to UCLA's economics graduates, and Bloomberg's August 2019 segment on his passive-investing warning. The 2012 address is the richest of the three, since it contains long-horizon claims about a second recession and about US debt passing 200 percent of national output.
- How many there are
- 3
- How many we read
- 3
- Time span
- 2011-07 to 2019-08
- How we sampled
- All three known recordings were taken, so this is a complete count rather than a sample and no shortlisting vocabulary or random check applies. The UCLA address has a published text version, so his words there can be quoted exactly. For the two Bloomberg pieces the words come from the recording itself and from outlets that quoted him directly at the time.
Books
Burry has not written a book. He is the central figure in one, Michael Lewis's The Big Short, but the words in that book are Lewis's, so nothing in it can stand as a statement by Burry. Bookseller and publisher listings under his name were checked and returned no title he authored, and no chapter or foreword either.
- How many there are
- 0
- How many we read
- 0
- Time span
- 2011 to 2026-07
- How we sampled
- A name search across bookseller and publisher listings found nothing he wrote, so there was no text to mine and no sampling question to answer.
Extra web searches
Beyond the two archives that could be counted end to end, Burry was searched year by year from 2011 to today across the major financial outlets, company by company for each bet he is known to have held, and theme by theme for his inflation, recession, crash and AI warnings. That is how the calls from the years his own posts no longer exist were recovered, along with passages quoted out of newsletter pieces that sit behind his paywall. Only his own words, reproduced directly, were carried forward; where an outlet summarised him in its own words, the summary is kept as background and never presented as something he said.
- Michael Burry paired with each year from 2011 to 2026 across the major financial outlets, to recover calls from the stretches where his own posts no longer exist
- his positions company by company: Tesla, Nvidia, Palantir, Micron, GameStop, Apple, Alphabet, the payments names, the Hong Kong listings, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and index funds
- his recurring themes by name: inflation and a second inflation spike, recession, the consumer running out of savings, passive investing, the AI capital-spending boom, and stock-based compensation
- his quarterly position filings while his fund existed, and the commentary each one prompted, used to date when a bet was on rather than as a substitute for what he said
- the fan-run accounts that screenshot his posts before he deletes them, treated as leads to be confirmed rather than as sources
- coverage of his subscriber-only newsletter pieces, since reporters routinely quote passages from behind the paywall
- his rarer set-piece appearances: the 2010 New York Times op-ed, the 2011 Bloomberg profile, the 2012 UCLA address, the 2015 magazine Q&A, the 2019 Bloomberg exchange and the 2025 Michael Lewis interview
Known gaps
Three gaps matter most. First, nearly everything Burry writes now is behind a $39-a-month paywall, so for most of his newsletter pieces only the headline, the subtitle and the opening passage are public. That opening usually states the thesis, but the price levels and dates that would make a call sharply checkable are typically inside, which means some of his current calls can be recorded as directional but not as precise. Second, he deletes his own posts on X within days and has closed the account outright several times, so for most of 2011 to 2019 and again for 2022 to 2025 there is no complete record of what he said, only what reporters happened to quote before it disappeared. That skews the surviving record toward his most dramatic calls and away from his ordinary ones, and it is worth saying plainly that the one stretch preserved end to end, March 2020 to June 2021, survives only because someone was snapshotting the account at the time. Third, a large share of his recent output is a running trade log, and a position is not a prediction; those entries are read for the reasoning attached to them and are not counted as calls in their own right. Two smaller notes. The random spot-check of the archived posts suggested only about three in a hundred of what the forecast vocabulary skipped was worth a second look, which is reassuring, but it is a rough estimate rather than a measurement. And his heavy 2020 and 2021 commentary on the pandemic, on elections and on American politics contains claims that are far harder to settle cleanly than a market call, so a share of that will be set aside for a person to look at rather than counted. Recovery note: two pipeline attempts each finished their research fan-out and then hit the account session limit at the final merge, so neither wrote to disk. This corpus was recovered deterministically from the run journal; the kept consolidation is the best of the 8 recorded consolidate rounds by the pipeline's own rule (most scorable, then most records). No records were invented or edited in recovery.
What we didn’t score & why
- If-then call whose condition never happened
- 8
- Implied call, no deadline stated
- 141
- Out of scope for scoring
- 53
- Outcome not yet known
- 15
- Set aside for human review
- 7
Highlights
Best and worst calls.
Best calls
3Scored prediction
Hiteconomy“This supply glut at retail is the Bullwhip Effect. Google it. Worth understanding for your investing endeavors. Deflationary pulses from this- -> disinflation in CPI later this year --> Fed reverses itself on rates and QT --> Cycles.”
US CPI inflation disinflates in the second half of 2022 as the retail inventory glut (the bullwhip effect) unwinds.
- Made on
- 2022-06-27
- Outcome
- Hit
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- +3.82
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2022-12-31
Resolves true if US headline CPI inflation (BLS CPI-U, year-over-year) decelerates over the second half of 2022, i.e. the December 2022 year-over-year rate is below the rate in the most recent report available when the claim was made (the May 2022 report). A single month's blip does not suffice; the rate must be lower into year-end.
Criterion is purely a CPI path test and is met on both prongs: December 2022 headline CPI year-over-year (6.45 percent) is below the May 2022 report rate available when the claim was made (8.58 percent), and the deceleration is monotonic across the six months from the June 2022 peak rather than a one-month blip. Methodological point in favour of these figures: CUUR0000SA0 is the NOT seasonally adjusted CPI-U series, which BLS does not revise, so these year-over-year rates are final and vintage-independent. Rates computed from BLS index values match BLS published headline figures to rounding (8.6 percent for May 2022, 9.1 percent for June 2022, 6.5 percent for December 2022). One flag for the quantify stage, not affecting resolution: the claim's canonical text attributes the disinflation to the retail inventory glut and bullwhip effect unwinding, but the written criterion tests only the CPI path and contains no causal-mechanism test, so the mechanism is not evidenced here and should not be scored as part of this record. No conflicting credible evidence found. No outcome value assigned per stage scope.
Sources
Michael Burry Sounds Fed Warning. What Is the Bullwhip Effect?
InvestorPlace ·
Michael Burry's Bullwhip Tweet Deserves Serious Attention
Bloomberg Opinion ·
Michael Burry of 'The Big Short' Fame Warns Fed May Alter Course
Bloomberg ·
Michael Burry Warns of the Bullwhip Effect, Says the Fed Could Reverse Course
StreetInsider ·
Michael Burry Warns of the Bullwhip Effect, Says the Fed Could Reverse Course
Investing.com ·
Mr. Big Short: Fed May do a 180 on Interest Rates
TheStreet ·
Burry's Bullwhip Effect Tweet Alarms the Masses
TipRanks ·
Legend Michael Burry Warns of 'Disinflation,' Soaring Growth Stocks
Nasdaq / InvestorPlace ·
Legend Michael Burry Warns of 'Disinflation,' Soaring Growth Stocks
InvestorPlace ·
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry predicted inflation would plunge - but his calls of a stock-market crash and recession are yet to come true
Business Insider (via Yahoo Finance) ·
Evidence of what happened
BLS CPI-U, All Items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (series CUUR0000SA0), retrieved from the BLS public data API. 2021 index values: May 269.195, June 271.696, July 273.003, August 273.567, September 274.310, October 276.589, November 277.948, December 278.802. 2022 index values: May 292.296, June 296.311, July 296.276, August 296.171, September 296.808, October 298.012, November 297.711, December 296.797.
Year-over-year rates derived from those official index values, establishing the baseline required by the criterion: May 2022 = 8.58 percent (this is the most recent CPI report available on 2022-06-27 when the claim was made, since the May CPI report was released 2022-06-10 and the June report not until 2022-07-13). December 2022 = 6.45 percent. December 2022 is 2.13 percentage points BELOW the May 2022 baseline.
The decline was sustained through year-end rather than a single-month blip, as the criterion requires. Headline CPI year-over-year peaked in June 2022 and fell in every subsequent month of the second half: June 9.06 percent, July 8.52, August 8.26, September 8.20, October 7.75, November 7.11, December 6.45 percent, i.e. six consecutive monthly declines in the year-over-year rate.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Scored prediction
Hiteconomy“Prepare for #inflation. Re-opening & stimulus on the way. Pre-COVID it took $3 debt to create $1 GDP, and it is worse now. In an inflationary crisis, governments will move to squash competitors in the currency arena. $BTC #gold”
US consumer price inflation rises materially within about a year as the COVID re-opening and fiscal stimulus feed through.
- Made on
- 2021-02-19
- Outcome
- Hit
- Importance
- 5 / 5
- Effect on score
- +4.77
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2021-05-12
US headline consumer price inflation rises materially above the rate prevailing when the statement was made: year over year CPI-U exceeds 4% in at least one month reported between 2021-02-19 and 2022-02-19, against the sub-2% year over year rate running at the time of the statement.
Criterion is satisfied, on the exact series and within the exact publication window it specifies. The criterion requires a CPI-U all-items NSA year-over-year print of 4.0 percent or higher in at least one month whose data is published between 2021-02-19 and 2022-02-19, up from 1.7 percent in February 2021. April 2021 printed 4.2 percent, published 2021-05-12, which alone satisfies it; the readings then kept climbing (7.0 percent for December 2021, published 2022-01-12, still inside the window). The February 2021 baseline of 1.7 percent is independently confirmed from the BLS release of 2021-03-10, so the 'up from' framing in the criterion checks out. resolved_on is set to 2021-05-12, the publication date of the first qualifying print, since the criterion is written in terms of publication rather than reference month. No conflicting credible evidence found. Note for a later stage, not a resolution matter: the criterion tests only the direction and magnitude of the CPI move, not the causal mechanism the claim asserts (post-COVID re-opening and fiscal stimulus), so no causal evidence was gathered or is implied by this resolution.
Sources
Prepare for #inflation. Re-opening & stimulus on the way.
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
Cassandra on Twitter: "Prepare for #inflation. Re-opening & stimulus on the way..." (thread capture showing the parent tweet)
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Internet Archive capture) ·
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry says 'prepare for inflation' — and warns bitcoin and gold might be at risk
Business Insider ·
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry says 'prepare for inflation' - and warns bitcoin and gold might be at risk
Business Insider (syndicated) ·
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry predicted the inflation spike a year ago — and sounded the alarm multiple times in February
Business Insider ·
I beat this drum hard in early 2021. "Prepare for #inflation," Burry tweeted on February 19, 2021...
X (@michaeljburry, 'Cassandra Unchained') ·
Inflation still a real risk... soon to be augmented by demand (repetition)
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
The US government is inviting inflation with its MMT-tinged policies (repetition)
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
Deleted tweets for michaeljburry
GitHub Gist (cancel-culture deleted-tweets report) ·
Deleted tweets for michaeljburry
GitHub Gist (travisbrown / cancel-culture) ·
Famous Big Short Investor Michael Burry Warns Weimar-Like Hyperinflation Is Coming To America
Moguldom ·
Michael Burry (The Big Short) Warns Weimar Hyperinflation Is Coming
Activist Post ·
Michael Burry Warns Weimar Hyperinflation Is Coming
The Burning Platform ·
Evidence of what happened
First qualifying print, and the resolving event. BLS Consumer Price Index news release for April 2021, published 2021-05-12 (inside the 2021-02-19 to 2022-02-19 publication window): over the last 12 months the all items index increased 4.2 percent before seasonal adjustment - the largest 12-month increase since the 4.9 percent rise for the period ending September 2008. This clears the criterion's 4.0 percent bar on the exact series specified (CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted).
The stated baseline is confirmed on the same series. BLS Consumer Price Index news release for February 2021, published 2021-03-10: over the last 12 months the all items index increased 1.7 percent before seasonal adjustment. This matches the 1.7% February 2021 figure written into the criterion.
Margin of satisfaction, well inside the window. BLS Consumer Price Index news release for December 2021, published 2022-01-12: the all items index rose 7.0 percent for the 12 months ending December, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending June 1982. The criterion is met not marginally but by a factor, and the qualifying prints continued through the end of the window.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Scored prediction
Hiteconomy“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.”
US CPI inflation is lower in the second half of 2023 than at the time of the post, and possibly negative.
- Made on
- 2023-01-02
- Outcome
- Hit
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- +3.68
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2024-01-11
Resolves TRUE if US headline CPI year-over-year inflation in the second half of 2023 (the July through December 2023 prints, BLS CPI-U, NSA) is lower than the 6.5% year-over-year rate reported for December 2022 that stood when the post was made. Resolves FALSE if it is equal or higher. The 'possibly negative' element is hedged and is recorded as a secondary sub-claim (year-over-year CPI below 0% in any 2H 2023 month), not as the scored direction.
The asserted outcome (CPI y/y lower in 2H 2023 than the ~6.5% December 2022 baseline) is met unambiguously: all six prints are below the baseline and the average (3.4%) is well under it. The hedged extension (a negative y/y print) is recorded as NOT occurring -- the minimum 2H 2023 y/y print was 3.1% -- but per the criterion this is not required for a correct resolution and should be carried as a recorded sub-fact only, not as the asserted outcome. resolved_on is set to 2024-01-11, the publication date of the December 2023 CPI, which is the last print inside the 2H 2023 window and the point at which the whole-half comparison became determinable. Headline CPI NSA 12-month figures are not revised after publication, so these values are final. No conflicting credible evidence found. No outcome value (o) assigned per instructions.
Sources
Famed investor Michael Burry predicts U.S. recession "by any definition"
CBS News ·
'Big Short' Michael Burry shares alarming market prediction for 2023
Finbold ·
'Big Short' Michael Burry Makes a Dire Prediction For 2023
TheStreet ·
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry predicts a US recession in 2023 and another inflation spike
Business Insider ·
Evidence of what happened
Baseline print available when the claim was made (2023-01-01 post, last published print being December 2022 released 2023-01-12; the criterion fixes the comparison at ~6.5%): BLS CPI news release for December 2022 (USDL-23-0017) states "Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 6.5 percent before seasonal adjustment."
All six 2H 2023 headline CPI-U y/y prints came in far below the 6.5% baseline, satisfying both parts of the criterion (at least one print below 6.5%, and the 2H prints do not average above 6.5%): July 2023 3.2% (released 2023-08-10), August 3.7% (2023-09-13), September 3.7% (2023-10-12), October 3.2% (2023-11-14), November 3.1% (2023-12-12), December 3.4% (2024-01-11). Every single print is below the baseline; the six-print average is 3.4%, roughly half the baseline rate. Verified by reading each BLS release PDF via the US Department of Labor mirror.
Closing print of the window: BLS CPI news release for December 2023 (USDL-24-0019, published 2024-01-11) states "Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment."
The hedged "possibly negative" sub-clause did NOT occur: no 2H 2023 month printed a negative headline CPI y/y rate. Underlying BLS index series CUUR0000SA0 confirms the price level rose year-over-year in every month of 2H 2023 (e.g. December 2023 = 306.746 vs December 2022 = 296.797, +3.35%; November 2023 = 307.051 vs November 2022 = 297.711, +3.14%). The lowest y/y print of the half was 3.1% in November 2023.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Worst calls
3Scored prediction
Misseconomy“2021 we will face the music on foreclosures and evictions, yet few investors aware of it. Thank you @TruthGundlach for sharing your wonderful charts and figures.”
A wave of foreclosures and evictions hits the United States during 2021.
- Made on
- 2020-12-09
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- -1.78
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2021-12-31
Both US foreclosure filings and US eviction filings rise materially during calendar 2021 versus calendar 2020, measured on national filing counts (for example ATTOM foreclosure filings and Eviction Lab eviction filings), assessed as of 2021-12-31. A rise in one series alone does not satisfy the claim, which names both.
Criterion requires BOTH national foreclosure filings and national eviction filings to rise materially in calendar 2021 versus calendar 2020, and states explicitly that a rise in one series alone does not satisfy the claim. The foreclosure leg is decisive and unambiguous: ATTOM national foreclosure filings fell 29 percent year over year (151,153 in 2021). Nuance recorded for transparency, not a conflict: the eviction leg plausibly did rise off 2020's moratorium-suppressed base. Eviction Lab's tracked sites ran about 65 percent below the historical average over Mar 15 to Dec 31 2020 versus 50.3 percent OF the historical average (about 50 percent below) in full-year 2021, implying a partial year-over-year rebound. Eviction Lab does not publish a matched calendar-2020 tracked-site filing total alongside the 434,304 figure for 2021, so a clean 2021-vs-2020 eviction percentage on identical coverage is not available from the source. This does not change the resolution because the foreclosure series moved decisively the wrong way and the criterion names both. Eviction Lab's own framing is that no eviction wave materialized in 2021. Measurement window closed 2021-12-31; the decisive ATTOM data published 2022-01-13. No outcome value assigned per stage scope.
Sources
2021 we will face the music on foreclosures and evictions
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
Maybe many are underestimating the end game on these #foreclosure and #eviction moratoriums (repetition)
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
With foreclosure moratorium, eviction moratorium both ending (repetition)
Twitter / @michaeljburry (Wayback Machine) ·
Deleted tweets for michaeljburry
GitHub Gist (travisbrown / cancel-culture) ·
Deleted tweets for michaeljburry
GitHub Gist (cancel-culture deleted-tweets report) ·
Evidence of what happened
ATTOM Year-End 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report (published 2022-01-13): foreclosure filings (default notices, scheduled auctions, bank repossessions) were reported on 151,153 U.S. properties in 2021, DOWN 29 percent from 2020 and down 95 percent from the 2010 peak of nearly 2.9 million. The foreclosure leg of the criterion therefore fell, it did not rise.
Eviction Lab, US eviction filing patterns in 2021: 434,304 eviction cases were filed between January 1 and December 31, 2021 across tracked jurisdictions, versus roughly 865,000 in a typical year in the same areas, i.e. 50.3 percent of the historical average (about 430,000 fewer cases than normal). The authors state that given pandemic hardship they would have expected far more filings than in 2019 but 'the opposite happened,' and that filings did not revert to normal or above-normal levels even after the CDC moratorium ended in August 2021.
Eviction Lab, US eviction filing patterns in 2020 (comparator year): between March 15 and December 31, 2020 eviction filings were 65 percent below the historical average in tracked sites, and at least 1.55 million fewer eviction cases were filed nationwide in 2020 than in a typical year.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Scored prediction
Misseconomy“#Crazybuttrue fact. 2020: 529,068 company bankruptcies, lowest in 35 years. Also, a likely true fact. 2020: Most delayed bankruptcies in the history of the human race. So, 2021, you're up.”
US company bankruptcies surge in 2021 as the bankruptcies delayed during 2020 finally arrive.
- Made on
- 2021-01-05
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- -1.78
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2021-12-31
Company bankruptcy filings in calendar 2021 rise materially above the calendar 2020 total, meaning an increase of at least 10% year over year, on the series Burry cites or the closest available national series such as US business bankruptcy filings reported by the Administrative Office of the US Courts, assessed as of 2021-12-31.
Criterion required calendar-2021 company bankruptcy filings to rise at least 10 percent above calendar 2020 on the Administrative Office of the US Courts business bankruptcy series or closest national equivalent, assessed as of 2021-12-31. Actual movement was in the opposite direction and far outside the threshold: business filings -33.7 percent, total filings -24.0 percent, business Chapter 11 -43.9 percent. Every candidate national series moves the same way, so there is no series-selection ambiguity and no conflicting credible evidence. US Courts Table F-2 counts are compiled on a 12-month-period-ending basis, which matches the calendar-year framing of the criterion exactly for the Dec 31 tables used here. Measurement window closed 2021-12-31; the Dec-2021 Table F-2 published in early 2022. No outcome value assigned per stage scope.
Sources
Evidence of what happened
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Table F-2 (U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, Business and Nonbusiness Cases Commenced, by Chapter, During the 12-Month Period Ending December 31, 2021), US Total row: total filings all chapters 413,616; BUSINESS filings 14,347 (Chapter 7: 8,678; Chapter 11: 4,366; Chapter 13: 852; other chapters: 451); nonbusiness filings 399,269. Figures read directly from the official Table F-2 spreadsheet at https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/data_tables/bf_f2_1231.2021.xlsx
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Table F-2 for the 12-Month Period Ending December 31, 2020 (the comparator year), US Total row: total filings all chapters 544,463; BUSINESS filings 21,655 (Chapter 7: 11,919; Chapter 11: 7,786; Chapter 13: 1,150; other chapters: 800); nonbusiness filings 522,808. Figures read directly from the official Table F-2 spreadsheet at https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/bf_f2_1231.2020.xlsx
Derived comparison on the criterion's named series: US business bankruptcy filings fell from 21,655 (12 months ending 2020-12-31) to 14,347 (12 months ending 2021-12-31), a decline of 33.7 percent year over year. Total bankruptcy filings fell from 544,463 to 413,616, a decline of 24.0 percent. Business Chapter 11 filings specifically fell from 7,786 to 4,366, a decline of 43.9 percent, so no business sub-series rose.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Scored prediction
Misseconomy“Forced forbearance the tainted sweet. Banks pulling back on new mortgages, even with GSE backstop. When forbearance ends, homes will be dumped en masse. People raiding retirement funds. "What the hell is going on around here?" - Mike Muir #EndTheShutdown”
US homes are dumped on the market en masse once COVID-era mortgage forbearance ends.
- Made on
- 2020-05-16
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- -1.78
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2022-12-31
Given that CARES Act mortgage forbearance ended (condition met), a mass wave of distressed US housing supply follows by 2022-12-31: foreclosure filings and forced or distressed listings rise sharply above pre-pandemic (2019) levels and for-sale inventory swells with formerly forborne properties, rather than forborne loans being cured or refinanced into an orderly, tight market.
The record's antecedent condition is met (CARES Act forbearance did end), so the consequent is testable and fully determinate on the data. All three elements of the criterion point the same way: foreclosure filings in 2022 were 34 percent below 2019 rather than sharply above it; for-sale inventory hit record lows rather than swelling; and mortgage delinquency finished the window below its pre-pandemic rate. Recorded for the adjudicator so the strongest pro-claim framing is visible: foreclosure filings did more than double year over year (+115 percent vs 2021), which in isolation looks like a sharp rise. That comparison is against the artificially suppressed 2021 moratorium base, and the criterion specifies the pre-pandemic (2019) benchmark, against which 2022 was far lower. resolved_on set to the criterion deadline 2022-12-31; the confirming ATTOM year-end report was published 2023-01-12.
Sources
Evidence of what happened
ATTOM Year-End 2022 US Foreclosure Market Report: 324,237 US properties had foreclosure filings in 2022, up 115 percent from 2021 but DOWN 34 percent from 2019. Foreclosures affected 0.23 percent of all US housing units in 2022 versus 0.36 percent in 2019. ATTOM's Rick Sharga is quoted that foreclosure activity remains significantly lower than before the pandemic. Directly negates the criterion's requirement that foreclosure filings rise sharply above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Realtor.com active listing count for the United States (FRED ACTLISCOUUS): December 2019 = 1,033,913 active listings; December 2022 = 680,931, i.e. 34.1 percent BELOW the pre-pandemic level. The series hit an all-time low of 346,514 in February 2022, in the middle of the post-forbearance window. For-sale inventory did not swell with formerly forborne properties; it fell to record lows and never recovered to 2019 levels through 2022.
Delinquency rate on single-family residential mortgages booked in domestic offices, all commercial banks (FRED DRSFRMACBS): 2.34 percent in 2019Q4, peaking at only 2.83 percent in 2020Q3, then falling to 1.79 percent by 2022Q4 and 1.70 percent by 2023Q4. Mortgage distress ended the window BELOW its pre-pandemic level, consistent with forborne loans being cured, modified or refinanced rather than liquidated.
Corrections
No public corrections.
All scored predictions
All 12 scored predictions, linked to their full pages.
- The US government continues easy-money (accommodative monetary) policy into the next presidential term, i.e. it is still in place after the January 2013 inauguration.Hit
- US homes are dumped on the market en masse once COVID-era mortgage forbearance ends.Miss
- Zoom Video Communications ($ZM) is worth less than $150 billion in 2022 or 2023.Hit
- A wave of foreclosures and evictions hits the United States during 2021.Miss
- US company bankruptcies surge in 2021 as the bankruptcies delayed during 2020 finally arrive.Miss
- US consumer price inflation rises materially within about a year as the COVID re-opening and fiscal stimulus feed through.Hit
- The US enters a consumer recession, with further pressure on corporate earnings.Miss
- US CPI inflation disinflates in the second half of 2022 as the retail inventory glut (the bullwhip effect) unwinds.Hit
- The US is in a recession that extends for multiple years, because no force or strategy exists to pull the economy out of it.Miss
- US CPI inflation is lower in the second half of 2023 than at the time of the post, and possibly negative.Hit
- US CPI inflation falls further, possibly turning negative, during the second half of 2023.Hit
- DeepSeek releases its v4 model before the end of February 2026.Miss
Timeline
Scored predictions over time.
Each dot is one scored prediction, placed by the date it was made and how it turned out. Hover a dot for details, or click it to open the full record.
Per-topic score
Scores broken down by topic.
economy
Small samplePartial record- Score
- -9
- Predictions scored
- 10
Too few scored predictions to label this topic yet.
markets
Small samplePartial record- Score
- -10
- Predictions scored
- 3
Too few scored predictions to label this topic yet.
How this was computed
How this score was computed.
The website shows the published score and the predictions behind it; it doesn't recompute or adjust the headline number.
- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources