The Mother Of All Crashes Is Coming | Michael Burry’s Final Warning

What's up guys, it's Graham here. So, I recently came across a video from the channel New Money with a rather ominous title that instantly got my attention: "Michael Burry's Warning for the 2022 Stock Market Crash." This was a deep dive into the impending downfall of the U.S. stock market, the worsening crisis of inflation, how these major issues are only getting worse, and why the recent downturn has only just begun. All based on the now-deleted tweets from one of the most infamous contrarian investors of all time, who happened to be one of the people talking about the market top right before everything went south.

So, let's talk about his exact warnings, the data behind his predictions, what this means for you, and then finally, my own thoughts about the 2022 stock market collapse. All coming from the same person who called out record-high inflation, warned about the unsustainable price of Bitcoin, shorted Tesla before its drop, and cautioned that the market was dancing on a knife's edge. All before they happened. Right after, of course, you crash the like button for the YouTube algorithm by giving it a gentle tap and subscribing if you haven't done that already. Since after all, it's totally free and is a thank you for doing that. Here's a picture of a baby platypus! I'm also going to link to New Money's video down below in the description for anyone who wants to check it out. So, enjoy! And now, with that said, let's begin.

Now, for those unaware, Michael Burry is not exactly the most formal when it comes to his warnings. Instead of taking an interview with the news outlet, posting a video on a YouTube channel, or writing about it on Reddit's Wall Street Bets for internet points like most people do, he takes to Twitter, where he posts his detailed research and then immediately deletes it. Now, thankfully, in case you missed it, there's an archive account that reposts each and every one of his 280-character masterpieces. And, well, there's a lot to unpack, especially because of how active he's been over these last few weeks.

It's the New Money channel mentioned. Michael Burry wastes no time talking about speculative market peaks, explaining that each market crash generally bottoms at a P/E ratio lower than the one that came before it. As a result, he predicts a P/E ratio bottoming at 16, which would translate to an S&P 500 of 1862, or roughly 50 percent lower than where we are today. He also backs this up by showing three graphs, all outlining that past financial crises have taken ten years to peak, including 1929, 2001, and, wait for it, 2022.

Of course, when Elon Musk calls him out as a broken clock, he fires back with, "Habitually, I am one to two years early on literally everything, and you too could attain broken clock status." And I mean, he does have a bit of a point. I mean, after all, in recent history, Michael Burry called for inflation six months before inflation started to increase. He spoke about betting against Bitcoin right as it hit its peak of nearly 69 thousand dollars and subsequently fell 50% over the following few months. His Tesla short position also worked in his favor when it declined from 1200 to 900 a share. His famous housing market collapse took nearly two years to play out in the way he had imagined.

That's why Michael Burry recommends that even though the market may not play out exactly on time, with patience, his projection should come true. Or, as he says, "Enough takes time." As I said about 2008, "It's like watching a plane crash. It hurts. It's not fun. And I'm not smiling."

To make matters worse, he's noted that U.S. personal savings has fallen to 2013 levels. The savings rate is the lowest it's been since 2008, and credit card debt is approaching a record amount despite the stimulus payments issued throughout the last two years. For him, this points to a bleak outlook that consumers have less money to spend; they have less money to save, and the majority of their income is being swallowed up by higher costs. This is leading to lower earnings, less profits, and falling stock prices. At this rate, he estimates that at the current trajectory, Americans could run out of savings by September to December of this year before they'll have to resort to borrowing just to stay afloat.

Of course, there is some speculation that this isn't Michael Burry's best interest to be as bearish as possible while he shorts the market. Although, in terms of what other data says and whether or not Michael Burry is right, look no further than today's economy, because the details don't lie. In terms of our current market, many economists are referring to this as the end of the everything bubble while interest rates begin on their ascent upwards for the first time in, well, a while.

And the thing is, he's not exactly wrong. Since the 1980s, the U.S. economy has benefited from interest rates that have continually decreased to the point where any future rate hikes have been unable to exceed the previous peak before it. That means that over time, our money gets cheaper, the market gets more expensive, and the economy grows at a rapid pace. However, that only works while inflation remains low, of which is certainly not the case today.

Either way, if we get a federal funds rate above three and a half percent, that will have broken the interest rate downtrend that was started over 40 years ago, entering a new era of investing where money is no longer free and companies actually have to make a profit if they want to stay afloat. Crazy, right? The Financial Times argues that low interest rates have been the equivalent of a sugar high, which kept the prices of stocks, housing, and other assets going up and up even as the fundamentals of the economy have been eroding.

Now, that got me thinking: what are these so-called eroding fundamentals? Because besides stagnant wage growth, skyrocketing costs of education, high inflation, a shortage of housing, well, at least the unemployment rate is low, so that's good, right? Right? Okay, now in all fairness, not everything is bad. Even though Michael Burry says that things are getting worse, there are some points to look forward to.

One, many sectors are already down to record lows. Tech, for example, has seen a decline of 30%, with individual companies like PayPal down 75%. Shopify and Coinbase are both down almost 80%, Facebook down 50%, and hundreds of companies reaching their lowest point that they've ever seen. That could mean that the market has already approached or is soon approaching a bottom for certain stocks while consumer sentiment is at an all-time low.

Two, Bank of America suggests that the stock market crash is almost over and is about to rocket emoji. They've mentioned that a peak-to-trough bear market decline is 37.3% over the span of 289 days. Matching that pattern will put the end of the pain on October 19th, 2022, with an S&P 500 likely bottoming at 3,000. Now, they did go on to say that they don't believe the market sell-off is over quite yet, but that it could be a great time to continue buying in with the preparation that once it turns around, you'll make a lot of money.

Three, costs are beginning to come down. Like, remember how shipping container prices were going through the roof? Well, good news, prices are falling, along with the average transit time. Lumber prices have also come down substantially. And even though some metrics are still high, like food, energy, and housing, we could be seeing the beginning signs of everything beginning to slow down.

Fourth, we have really low unemployment. Now, sure, we are seeing mass layoffs throughout hard-hit internet and fintech industries, but overall it was reported that workers still remain scarce and that job vacancies are dropping lower and lower as more people are working. Now, obviously, things could change, but we are well below historical levels of unemployment, and that is good news right now.

And five, oil prices have declined from their peak. This one has been a major driving force behind our record high inflation because higher oil prices raise the cost of, well, pretty much everything. But I digress. Since hitting a high on June 10th, prices have gone down, and even though things are still historically high, it could be a trend downwards.

Speaking of falling prices, before we go into the big picture of Michael Burry's overall thoughts, he did make an interesting point that throughout a bear market, we're likely to see a lot of rallies along the way, and that's kind of what we're seeing now. Since the peak at the end of 2021, we've entered a pattern of falling 8% to 10%, rallying 5%, falling another 8% to 10%, rallying 5%, and it's anyone's guess as to how long this is going to continue.

During the bull market, for example, we saw the exact same pattern in reverse as the market increased like this over a period of almost two years. But this time, Burry notes that dead cat bounces are the most epic. Twelve of the top 20 NASDAQ one-day rallies happened during the 78% drop from the 2000s top. Nine of the top 20 S&P 500 one-day rallies happened during the 86% drop in the 1929 top. He also goes on to say that the Dow had 10 bear market rallies of more than 10% before bottoming down 89% in 1929, suggesting that it's going to take some time before we see the true bottom.

Morgan Stanley also tends to agree, saying that generally speaking, we don't see bear markets bottom without panic selling, similar to what was seen in 2001 and 2020. Historically, no bear market has ever bottomed without a VIX reading of 45 or more, and sure enough, in recent history, that's true. The VIX hit a peak of over 70 in November 2008 before bottoming out just three months later. The VIX also hit 57 and 65 at the exact same time we reached our March 2020 lows, so this is absolutely something to consider, even though statistics like this usually hold true until the day they don't.

Although, in terms of reaching a bottom, The Wall Street Journal gave a slightly different variation, saying that since 1950, the S&P 500 has sold off at least 15% on 17 occasions. On 11 of those occasions, the stock market managed to bottom out only around the time that the Fed shifted towards loosening monetary policy again. Meaning that if inflation comes down and our economy begins to fall, there's a chance that they could ease or even reduce rates. And when or if that happens, the markets could begin to recover.

However, keep in mind that even though all of this sounds like horrible doom and gloom news, it—well, I mean, it is—but it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. And even though Michael Burry makes some great points, some of his predictions have yet to come to fruition. For example, in 2019, he compared index funds with the subprime CDOs of 2008. For this, he claimed that index funds were distorting the true valuations of the companies held within them. But since then, index funds have remained a fairly solid investment.

In 2016, he predicted a financial meltdown and World War III, and despite me spending an hour trying to find any basis to his claims whatsoever, the only thing I could find was a quote saying, "I just did the math. Every bit of my logic is telling me the global financial system is going to collapse." That's basically the financial equivalent of saying, "Just trust me, bro."

But then again, in 2017, he called for an imminent stock market crash while the markets went on to rally another 55%. And in 2020, at the literal bottom of the market, he warned about a selling stampede. So, had you listened to him, you would have missed out on quite the rally.

All of that is to say that even though I have immense respect for Michael Burry, part of me believes that if he makes enough predictions, eventually a few will come true. And when there's not a defined time frame, it's easy to keep saying, "Oh no, just wait a little bit longer. It didn't come true because I'm too early. Just keep waiting." And of course, by doing so, you risk missing out on a market that might move way past initial expectations.

That's why I believe that it's best to be cautious in a market like this and prepare for the worst. But also, don't tailor your investment strategy to a market that may or may not turn out as expected. Far too many people have lost way more money sitting on the sidelines waiting for that inevitable stock market collapse than those who keep buying on a regular basis, regardless of where the market trades, and long term, they tend to come out ahead.

I think the main focus for everyone should simply be to stay employed and maximize your income over these next few years as best as you can. That way, even if the market does continue to drop, you're going to have the resources to buy in at a lower price. Everything else is simply a shot in the dark, and regardless of what happens, you're never going to look back and think, "Oh geez, I shouldn't have worked so efficiently and made so much money over these last few years."

Oh, and by the way, I'm glad I subscribed because that was the best decision ever, and it's totally free to do—hint! So, with that said, guys, thank you so much for watching, and until next time.