Author: Claude, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Introduction: Michael Burry, the prototype of "The Big Short," revealed his latest short positions, first shorting Caterpillar $CAT, which performed the best in the S&P 500 this year (up 86% in the first half), at an entry price of $1060.98. On the same day, he also established shorts on Nvidia, Applied Materials, Tesla, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor ETF (SOXX). These stocks are almost all core beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure market, and Burry’s judgment is that valuations have reached an extreme level he has not seen in 30 years, "it's just a matter of time."

Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager known for accurately predicting the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, published a post on his paid Substack column "Cassandra Unchained" on June 30, disclosing a batch of new short positions targeting the AI and semiconductor sectors at once. The title of the article was "Trading Post June 30, 2026," and the core logic can be summed up in one sentence: The current AI market has risen to a dangerous position.

According to CNBC, Burry wrote: "This is my first time shorting Caterpillar. In the past, being long on this stock has earned me very well." This statement highlights the most unusual part of this position: Caterpillar is not an AI company; it manufactures construction machinery, mining, and energy equipment.

First shorting of Caterpillar at an entry price of $1060.98, as it became an "AI infrastructure proxy"

Burry shorted Caterpillar at the price of $1060.98. What alerted him was the valuation: as the stock price hit an all-time high, Caterpillar's price-to-sales ratio (P/S, share price to revenue per share ratio) reached at least its highest level in the past 30 years. According to GuruFocus data, its price-to-earnings ratio is about 53 times.

Caterpillar itself is not related to AI, but the market treats it as a "shovel stock" for global AI infrastructure investment. Data center construction requires power generation, transmission, and civil engineering, with increasing funds flowing into this heavy equipment leader. As a result, Caterpillar's cumulative increase in the first half of 2026 was 86%, becoming one of the best-performing components in the S&P 500 this year.

Burry provided his interpretation of the direct trigger for the rise on that day. According to TipRanks, he wrote: "The direct catalyst for today’s rise was the large-scale spending plan announced by South Korea. In my view, this is precisely the beginning of the end of this rally. It’s just a matter of time."

In one day, increased shorts on Nvidia, Applied Materials, SOXX, all marked entry prices

Caterpillar is not an isolated case. According to reports from Electrek and Investing.com, Burry disclosed the short entry prices on the same day (June 30): Nvidia at $198.09, Philadelphia Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) at $642.80, and Applied Materials at $729.40.

The main focus of this column is not Caterpillar, but semiconductors. Burry's argument is the extreme valuation: the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) is currently more than 65% above its 200-day moving average, a stretch that has occurred only once in history—which was when the dot-com bubble peaked in 2000. He also pointed out that the index’s price-to-sales ratio has exceeded 16 times, and even excluding Nvidia, it is "almost unaffected."

In terms of specific operations, he rolled over the put options on SOXX from January 2027 to March 2027, with the strike price moving up to just over $400, while continuing to hold the January put options on the Nasdaq ETF (QQQ). Regarding the semiconductor pullback, he wrote: "It’s just a matter of time."

Shorted Tesla at $416.22, but the size of this position was not disclosed

Burry's approach to Tesla was different from the previous shorts. According to Yahoo Finance, he wrote: "Finally, I shorted Tesla at $416.22. I'm glad it has risen back to that level." Tesla closed at $379.71 the previous trading day and surged about 10% during the day on Tuesday, indicating Burry shorted during the rise rather than chasing a drop.

It is noteworthy that he did not disclose any size information for the Tesla short—no number of shares, no amounts, and did not indicate whether options were used. Care needs to be taken in interpreting this. Media has often exaggerated Burry's past Tesla shorts: in the first quarter of 2021, Scion's 13F filing showed he held corresponding put options for 800,100 shares of Tesla, reported by many media as a "short position of $534 million," but that was just the nominal value of the options (value of the shares calculated based on the closing price at that time), not the actual capital he invested (i.e., the premium on the options, which was much smaller). He had already closed that position in November 2021.

Tesla still fits Burry's overall bearish logic. He criticized Tesla's "ridiculous" equity dilution and "ridiculously high" valuation last December and linked it to the $1 trillion compensation plan approved by shareholders for Musk. In April of this year, after analyzing the audit reports of several tech companies over the past decade, he called Tesla the "king of tragedies"—referring to companies whose equity incentives surpass both GAAP expenses and cumulative net profit.

This is a "clearing-style shorting" at the end of the quarter, but without 13F endorsement

According to Investing.com, these positions read more like a concentrated barrage against the "overbought" securities at the end of the quarter rather than a separate judgment against a specific stock. Burry has previously completely turned bearish: by the third quarter of 2025, Scion held put options for 5 million shares of Palantir (nominal value of about $912 million) and put options for 1 million shares of Nvidia (about $187 million), with these two positions totaling about $1.1 billion. He has repeatedly pointed out the aggressive data center expansions of Oracle, Google, and Microsoft, warning that the market is ignoring the financial risks of heavy capital consumption amid AI optimism and has repeatedly likened the current market to the internet bubble of 1999-2000.

Readers need to be reminded that as of the time of writing, there is no confirmed 13F filing disclosing the short position in Caterpillar. All information currently comes from Burry's own columns and social media, not regulatory filings. The exact size and structure of the positions will have hard data only in Scion's next 13F filing.