Full record
MisseconomyThe US enters a consumer recession, with further pressure on corporate earnings.
A scored prediction by Michael Burry, made on .
Scored prediction
Misseconomy“US Personal Savings fell to 2013 levels, the savings rate to 2008 levels — while revolving credit card debt grew at a record-setting pace back to the pre-COVID peak despite all those $trillions of cash dropped in their laps. Looming: a consumer recession and more earnings trouble.”
The US enters a consumer recession, with further pressure on corporate earnings.
- Made on
- 2022-05-27
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 5 / 5
- Effect on score
- -2.22
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2023-10-26
Resolves true if, on or before 2023-05-27, the US enters a consumer recession: NBER dates a recession beginning within the window, or US real personal consumption expenditures (BEA, chained dollars) decline in two or more consecutive quarters within it. Slowing but still-positive real consumption growth resolves false. The 'more earnings trouble' clause is corroborating, not decisive.
Per the criterion this record is 'decided on the primary limb alone', and the primary limb fails on both of its alternative tests: real PCE never contracted in a single quarter across the window (its weakest quarter, 2022Q4, still grew +0.20%), and the NBER dated no recession start. The criterion also specifies that a contraction starting after 2023-05-27 would resolve FALSE, which is moot here since no contraction started at all. resolved_on set to 2023-10-26, the date of BEA's advance estimate for 2023Q3: the last quarter that could begin inside the window is 2023Q2 (which contains 2023-05-27), and ruling out a two-quarter contraction beginning in 2023Q2 requires 2023Q3 data, making that the first date the primary limb was fully determinable. Note on real PCE revisions: the figures above are the current vintage; the direction of every quarter is far from the zero line, so revision risk does not threaten the finding. SECONDARY, NON-DECISIVE LIMB (S&P 500 aggregate quarterly operating earnings YoY) was NOT independently verified in this pass — the S&P Dow Jones Indices earnings file returned HTTP 403 and the session's web search budget was exhausted, so I did not want to assert unsourced earnings figures. This is flagged transparently rather than guessed; the criterion makes this limb explicitly non-decisive, so its absence does not affect resolution of the primary test. If the quantify stage wants the corroboration recorded, the S&P DJI 'sp-500-eps-est' workbook is the primary source to retry. No outcome value assigned.
Sources
'Big Short' investor Michael Burry predicts a consumer recession — and warns companies face more earnings pain
Business Insider / Markets Insider ·
Archived capture of the 2022-05-28 Business Insider report
Wayback Machine (Business Insider) ·
'Big Short' Investor Michael Burry Warns of Looming Consumer Recession, More Earnings Trouble
Bitcoin.com News ·
Evidence of what happened
PRIMARY LIMB, real PCE test: no contraction at all, let alone two consecutive quarters. BEA real personal consumption expenditures in chained dollars (NIPA series DPCERX, millions of chained 2017 dollars, SAAR) rose in every quarter spanning the window: 2022Q1 15,100,850; 2022Q2 15,224,357 (+0.82%); 2022Q3 15,295,828 (+0.47%); 2022Q4 15,326,248 (+0.20%); 2023Q1 15,495,754 (+1.11%); 2023Q2 15,553,719 (+0.37%). The series also continued rising through 2023Q3 (15,671,906, +0.76%) and 2024, so no two-consecutive-quarter contraction began inside the window or immediately after it.
PRIMARY LIMB, NBER test: the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee has identified no business cycle peak after February 2020, so it dated no US recession start within the 2022-05-27 to 2023-05-27 window. The committee's most recent announcements are the February 2020 peak (announced 2020-06-08) and the April 2020 trough (announced 2021-07-19), with no announcements from 2022 onward.
NBER official reference dates table corroborates that the most recent dated contraction remains February 2020 to April 2020, with no subsequent peak recorded.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Effect on the score
-2.22- How sure they sounded
- 85%
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 5 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
The US enters a consumer recession, with further pressure o…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 2, 2026
- Made on
- 2022-05-27
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources