Retreat signal? "Big short" closes bearish options on Nvidia and Palantir

"Big Short" Michael Burry has announced he is reducing risk, having closed his near-term put options on Nvidia and Palantir, though his overall bearish positioning remains intact.

According to the latest report from StockTwits, Burry posted on Substack on Wednesday stating that he "tightened risk exposure" in September, trimming every position in his portfolio. He currently holds some cash and is "happy to hold it, waiting to see how the market performs in the fall." He wrote: "This fall will be an interesting market."

The most notable move was that Burry closed his December 2026 put options on Nvidia and Palantir and did not roll these positions over to contracts with later expiration dates.

Closed near-term options, but the bearish thesis remains

Burry explained the reason for closing the positions in his post: to avoid the rapid time decay of expiring contracts. He stated that this step is part of "shrinking overall portfolio exposure," not a fundamental shift in his bearish outlook.

According to reports, Burry still holds 2027 put options on Palantir and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and continues to short a variety of tech, semiconductor, and AI-related stocks.

Among his largest short positions are Oracle (ORCL), Palantir (PLTR), and Nebius Group (NBIS), followed by Nvidia (NVDA) and iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX). Nvidia ranks fourth in his short portfolio.

Long positions: Focus on consumer and healthcare, limited technology exposure

On the long side, Burry has also trimmed his holdings, but the rankings remained unchanged.

His largest long positions, in order, are: Lululemon Athletica (LULU)—which he called a "fat pitch" (i.e., highly attractive opportunity) last week—followed by Molina Healthcare (MOH) and MercadoLibre (MELI).

The top seventeen long positions also include Temple & Webster, Zoetis, Sprouts Farmers Market, JD.com, Birkenstock, Adobe, HCA Healthcare, Fiserv, Flutter Entertainment, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Veeva Systems, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and PayPal. Burry did not disclose the specific portfolio allocation for each position.

Jensen Huang counters Burry's depreciation thesis with data

Burry's core justification for shorting Nvidia is that he believes tech companies are overly optimistic in estimating the lifespan of Nvidia GPUs.

Many tech companies set the lifespan of Nvidia GPUs at six years and depreciate them accordingly—meaning they expense only one-sixth of the cost each year, inflating reported profits. Burry argues the actual working lifespan of these chips should be two to three years, and that the six-year depreciation assumption artificially boosts profits.

However, real-world data is challenging this view. Nvidia's Ampere A100 GPU, launched in mid-2020, is still widely used today. Reportedly, cloud computing company CoreWeave just signed a contract last month to rent these chips for AI processing, extending the contract until 2029—which will be nine years after the A100’s initial release.

The price trend is even more noteworthy. This week, financial market platform Ornn Exchange posted on X that the rent for the newer generation Hopper H100 chips has risen 22% quarter-on-quarter.

Jensen Huang immediately reposted this and added his own comment. The Motley Fool quoted him as saying that these figures "clearly refute Burry's assertion that Nvidia GPU lifespans are overestimated." Huang's implication: not only are these chips not becoming obsolete ahead of schedule, demand is actually continuing to climb.