Michael Burry, the famed investor who has drawn attention in recent months for criticism of the artificial intelligence boom, is betting against Oracle Corp.
Burry owns put options on Oracle shares, he said in a Substack post after markets closed on Friday. Puts typically increase in value as the price of the underlying asset falls. Burry, who revealed bearish bets against AI chipmaker Nvidia Corp. and Palantir Technologies Inc. in November, also directly shorted Oracle during the last six months, he said.
Oracle is known for its database software but has recently pushed aggressively into cloud-computing services, requiring a costly build out of data center capacity, for which it is taking on significant debt.
“I do not like how it is positioned or the investments it is making. It did not need to do what it is doing, and I do not know why it is doing this. Maybe ego,” Burry wrote in response to a reader who asked why he had decided to bet against Nvidia and not Oracle. He didn’t disclose details about the put options.
The view follows a volatile year for Oracle shares. The stock jumped 36% in a single session in September after the company issued a bullish forecast for its cloud business, signaling surging demand tied to artificial intelligence. Those gains quickly faded, however, as investors focused on rising capital expenditures, questions around the structure of some cloud deals and a swelling debt load linked to data-center expansion. Oracle finished the year about 40% below its September peak.
