Your Financial Plan vs. Michael Burry’s Prediction

It's the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily for Monday, August 17th. I am Mike Milligan. 42 days until I turn 50 years old, but who's counting? This week I want to do something different. Every day we're going to walk through what the market did the previous close, what the news of the day is, and then highlight one prominent market figure and what they're up to now. Today we're going to open with the Friday close. What the setup is for Monday. An editorial on Michael Burry. Remember him? The housing crisis prognosticator. And I think you're going to enjoy this. Educate, coach, plan is my mission. Never miss a moment's my motto. Let's go.

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To open up this Monday, let's set the stage from the close of last week. Friday, August 14th, the S&P 500 closed at 7,785, down about 0.17%. That's a small pullback from Thursday's record high above 7,800. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 53,732, also down about 0.2%. The Nasdaq closed at 26,729, down 0.28%. The story for the week, even with a red Friday, is that the S&P and the Nasdaq notched a 3rd straight weekly gain. The Dow snapped a 2-week winning streak. Friday's soft spot came from a weaker-than-expected July retail sales report and a preliminary Michigan consumer sentiment that fell to 51. That is a signal I want you tracking with me. The consumer is telling us the sticker price still feels heavy, even as the inflation prints have been cooperating. Now, Monday morning, futures are pointing us into a, into a mixed to slightly higher open— opening. S&P futures are near flat to modestly positive. NASDAQ are up roughly, you know, 0.3, 0.4%. The Dow futures are slightly red. In plain English, the bulls are trying to defend that record zone, and tech is still doing the heavy lifting.

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3 things on my radar for Monday: the Eastern Empire State Manufacturing Index for for August reports early. It is a regional read, but it will tell us if factory activity is still cooling or if it's picked back up. Then there's the NAHB Housing Market Index. With mortgage rates elevated and existing home inventory tight, this is one of the cleanest reads on builder confidence and where new home supply is heading. And then retail earnings kick off this week. Walmart, The Home Depot, Target, Lowe's are all on deck. And Friday's soft retail sales print— these company-level results will either confirm the consumer is slowing or push back on that narrative of that report. Also a reminder, geopolitical developments around the Strait of Hormuz and oil are still on the tape. This is a backdoor factor, not a headline yet. We're not chasing returns as much as we are building the one-of-a-kind financial plan on the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. Data days like today are for signal literacy, not for portfolio surgery and reconstruction.

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And now this feature that I've wanted to do for a while now on, uh, an a recent market name that you may or may not know, but you would know their story. So today I want to spotlight Michael Burry, the name you know from the movie The Big Short. It lived out in real time, and many of us suffered from his call and the actions of what, what actually played. He called the housing crisis. Recently, he launched a Substack newsletter called Cassandra Unchained. He did that on November 24th, 2025, nearly 9 months ago. And the story since then is one of the most fascinating narratives on Wall Street right now. Let me give you this. Let me give you the scoreboard first and the backstory. Michael Burry in 2006 famously called the housing crisis. He said subprime mortgages with inventory. And if you watch the movie The Big Short, it shows a supply of homes bought with mortgages that didn't have a lot of qualification that eventually caused the economy and the markets to crumble, taking names down with it like Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, and many others. Fast forward to today's time. Michael Burry ran a hedge fund called Scion Asset Management up until November of last year. Burdened by the restrictions that he had where he could not speak his mind, where he could not say what he thought about the markets, he dissolved the fund and gave the shareholders, the, the investors of that hedge fund back their capital in November of last year so that he could start this Substack. Substack is a social media platform, subscription-based, Where people can go in community and talk their minds. Since the day Burry launched his Substack, the broad market has surged, not tanked. Surged, I say. His core thesis on his Substack and what he wanted to speak his mind on, that where he was burdened by regulations on what he could say, was that AI and mega-cap were in a tech bubble. And so far it's been the wrong call. Nvidia, one of his target names that he spoke of when he launched his Substack, was around $182 the day he launched. On Friday, Nvidia closed at $225. That is up more than 23%. Nvidia's market cap has pushed past $5 trillion. Tesla was one of the few names that went his way. It's down about 18% over that same window. But on the whole, if you were short the AI trade since Thanksgiving, you got run over. And here's the story that gets interesting. Burry's Substack, Cassandra Unchained, crossed 300,000 subscribers on July 12th, 2026, in just 231 days. That is one of the fastest growing publications in Substack history. He charges $39 a month or $379 a year. There is also a free tier. Substack does not disclose the paid share publicly, but he carries their bestseller badge, which means he has tens of thousands of paid subscribers. Now let me walk you through that math, because this is where the lesson lives. If hypothetically every one of those 300,000 subscribers paid the annual rate, That is roughly $113 million a year in gross revenue. That is the ceiling, the, the, the absolute max he could be earning. In reality, most Substacks convert a small share of readers to paid at a 3% conversion rate, which is a top tier for finance writers. You are looking at roughly $350,000 per month. At 2%, roughly $234,000. $234,000 a month, and the conservative 1%, $117,000 a month. And that is before Substack's fees and Stripe's processing. But here's the observation, and here's the point. A capitalist is a capitalist. A man who called the— who made the call that famously became a movie called The Big Short has then built his wealth through advising people on money, only to be burdened by regulation, is now outside of the scope of regulation promoting what looks like a bad narrative, at least initially. We, we don't know what the future holds. We don't know what's coming. But right now, with over 300,000 followers, um, you know, with the one thing he got right, and he may be right again, but right now, 300,000 subscribers are paying to sit in a community that is looking for the worst to come. And if that narrative is right, if the AI bubble breaks, then his readers are prepared. If the narrative is wrong, the subscription fees still deposit into his bank every month. Remember this: Burry's last major call, the housing crisis, was correct, but he was several years too early. Being early and being wrong feel the same on your account statement. When markets are going up, when things look rosy, when we're talking about the difference on the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily between the AI narrative and how the consumer's feeling, we just want to educate. Time will tell whether this time Michael Burry is right or wrong. Either way, he's taken those subscription fees to the bank. The One of a Kind Financial Plan lesson is a strong voice is not the same as a plan for you. A prediction is not a strategy. A subscription to someone's fear is not a substitute for a written plan that outlines your income, your tax strategy, your risk, and your legacy. The One of a Kind Financial Plan answers the questions: should you or will you get it right or get it wrong for your one-of-a-kind life. Michael Burry, congratulations on building a community where you're pocketing 6, maybe 7 figures a month of income. And congratulations for getting outside of regulation control. But just remember, the responsibility at the end is the individual consumers who takes the advice. That's, that's our story today. Michael Burry is a capitalist, capitalist still being a capitalist. And he may be right, he may be wrong, but he's getting rich.

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3 quick questions to close today. One, if the AI trade cracked tomorrow, is your withdrawal plan protected? And are you, or are you selling at a bad price to pay bills? Number 2, if the AI trade keeps running up, are you positioned to participate at a level that fits your timeline? And number 3, do you have a written plan or do you have a subscription to someone else's opinion? Time will tell. And that is what we build at One Oak Financial, the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily, and through my written work, The One of a Kind Financial Plan and Retirement Déjà Vu. This is the show for Monday, August 17th. If you want to reach me, text the word ideas, I-D-E-A-S, to the number 600-600.

600-600.

700, or call my office at 757-909-7151. Tell Casey that you heard the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. Tomorrow, another prominent market figure and another story to help you sharpen your signal literacy. This is Mike Milligan, and if you've been around for a while, you know I am learning Spanish. I'm not proficient by any imagination, but one of the things we close with is estoy aprendiendo. I am learning. So are you by being a listener of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. My mission is to educate, coach, plan. Never miss a moment. I'll see you tomorrow. This content of the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared on the show constitutes investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice, and nothing shared should be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or short any security, sector, index, publication, or subscription service, or to execute any transaction. References to Michael Burry, Nvidia Corp, Tesla, Cassandra Unchained, or any other named individual security or publication are made for educational context. Historical prices and subscriber counts are sourced from public reporting and represent point-in-time data that may have changed. Revenue estimates for Cassandra Unchained are hypothetical, theoretical, and illustrative. Actual paid subscriber counts and revenue are not publicly disclosed. Individual results Results may vary. I am a certified financial planning professional and founder of One Oak Financial. Consult your qual— your own qualified financial, tax, and legal professional before making any decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

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