Short Thoughts May 10, 2026
About That Boy Who Cried Wolf
The boy who cried wolf. So many times, no wolf.
In the end, what happened? There was a wolf. But nobody was listening.
I am now a meme for the number of times I have called a crash.
I have become the boy who cried wolf.
History is written not by the victors, but by those that control the pen, and social media has that pen right now, it seems.
Still, I got it right in 2000, got it right in 2007. Got it right in 2019, helped by COVID, and I called the meme stock crash in mid 2021. I called the bank stock run in 2023. In 2017, I had trouble finding good stocks, and I discussed the passive investing bubble for the first time. I did not say it meant that we would crash anytime soon. My case was that crashes would become more correlated and more acute, and 2020’s COVID crash was the most acute, correlated stock market crash in history.
Every other time I supposedly called a crash, I had said nothing at all. It was reported that I had billion dollar short positions several times over about a decade not because I said anything, but because reporters misread regulatory filings. Then all the news services would trot out the same picture of me, “Burry calling for a crash” in so many words. Words that I did not say.
For a number of years I marveled at the resiliency of the market, for sure, but I have been long common stocks as the majority of my portfolio for almost my whole investment career. The exception being that one big short in 2005-2008.
Today however, I am telling.