Michael Burry is Betting Heavily on These 3 Stocks

2. Qurate Retail, Inc. (NASDAQ:QRTEA)

Value of Scion Asset Management‘s 13F Position: $10.1 million

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 24

Michael Burry added an even 5 million shares of Qurate Retail, Inc. (NASDAQ:QRTEA) to his fund’s 13F portfolio during Q3, with the position accounting for nearly a quarter of that portfolio’s value as of September 30. This isn’t the first time Qurate has appeared in Burry’s portfolio, though never so prominently. He bought 1.1 million shares of the company in the third quarter of 2020, but unloaded the position over the next two quarters.

Qurate Retail, Inc. (NASDAQ:QRTEA) is another Michael Burry stock pick that’s been heavily beaten down in recent years, as shares of the company have cratered by 93% since March 2018. Qurate manages several brands, including TV and web retailers QVC and HSN, which are jointly dubbed QxH. Those retailers have been faltering heavily over the last 12 months, losing 16.8% of their total customers year-over-year. Bank of America analyst Jason Haas believes it will be hard for the companies to win back those customers, which prompted a downgrade to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ and a big price cut to $1.20 from $4.00 earlier this month.

Hedge fund ownership of QRTEA made a small jump in the early days of the pandemic, but has gradually fallen in the quarters since and hit an all-time low during Q3. Many of the stock’s bulls were buying more shares of the company during Q3 however, including several major quant funds like Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.

Wallace Weitz’s Weitz Investment Partners III Opportunity Fund shared its take on Qurate Retail, Inc. (NASDAQ:QRTEA) in its Q2 2022 investor letter:

“As we describe in our latest “Value Matters,” we believe these are characteristics that allow companies to “make their own breaks,” regardless of the near-term challenges we may face. During the quarter, we sold our remaining shares of Qurate Retail‘s (NASDAQ:QRTEA) common equity but maintain a position in the company’s 8% preferred shares.”