[ad_1] The post 3 Tech Stocks from the Billionaire Betting Against Elon Musk appeared first on Millennial Money. We’ve said it often here at Millennial Money: 2020 was weird. On the surface, the S&P 500’s 16% return looks “pedestrian” by recent standards, even trailing the prior year’s return. Don’t be fooled: 2020 was a historic year for investors. In fact, the S&P 500 declined 30% in 22 trading days, the fastest sell-off ever (including the Great Depression). What happened next was shocking: young investors banded together in chatrooms and powered the stock market back. When the dust had settled, the market surged back and finished greater than 71% higher than the lows established in March. Unlike Wall Street “suits,” these investors willingly embraced risk and high-growth stocks, sending technology and electric vehicle stocks into stratospheric heights. This year the S&P 500 is currently on track for even better performance than last year, up nearly 10% through the first half of the year. So naturally, you’d expect last year’s leaders to continue to lead the way forward. And you’d mostly be wrong. Tesla is down 17% Apple is down 4%. Netflix is down 7%. Disney is down 5%. So how is the S&P 500 outperforming these large-cap growth stocks? The financial media, in desperate need of a narrative, has dubbed this a rotation from “stay-at-home” to “reopening stocks” but the truth is simpler: a shift from growth to value investing as industries like energy, industrials, and materials are leading the way in 2021. Value investing has underperformed growth for the greater part of a decade, to the point where famous value investor Ted Aronson closed his fund, sending his investors $10 billion of assets while telling them “our recent performance sucks.” Ouch! Meet Michael Burry: The Billionaire Betting Against Elon Musk Very few investors were anticipating a return to value stocks in an environment where the economy expanded at rates unseen in decades. However, value investor Michael Burry is no ordinary investor. In fact, he also predicted the most consequential change in the financial system in the last 50 years. If the name sounds vaguely familiar, you might know him from Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short (later adapted for the silver screen). Short version: Burry became increasingly worried about the subprime housing market in 2005, leading him to eventually short the mortgage market and make nearly a billion dollars for his fund. Afterward, Burry went underground before raising his profile over the last year, first by being an early investor in GameStop stock (before the tremendous run-up, back when it could be classified as value stock) then by issuing warnings about the increased frothiness in growth stocks. Tesla Motors was of interest to Burry, partially based on the back of an amazing 734% return in 2020. Burry’s family office, Scion Asset Management, went on to short Tesla stock. It’s early, but it appears Burry is making money on his Tesla short. Today Burry is short 800,100 shares (or about $530 million) worth of Tesla’s stock. Pick Like A Pro Where to invest $500 right now Are you ready for “maximum upside?” Motley Fool Rule Breakers is led by legendary investor David Gardner and pinpointed Tesla at $6.29, Salesforce at $6.89, and Shopify at $21.02. (It trades for more than $1,000 per share today!) Here’s why you’ll want to get the full details on Rule Breakers today. The service just announced its top 10 “best buys now” across the entire stock market. Whether you’re starting with $100, $500, or more, you’ll want to get the full details! Click here to learn more 3 Tech Value Stocks Michael Burry has Gone “Long” On That said, the Musk-versus-Burry story might be a sideshow. The truth is Burry is a great value investor and it pays to know what he’s thinking. To ensure we’re not missing any hidden value, we looked through his holdings to see if there were any stocks we agreed with. 1.) Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) Price: $318.61 (as of close May 20, 2021)Market Cap: 903,407,450,760Forward P/E: 26 times We get it: it’s slightly surprising to see Facebook referred to as a value stock but that’s the genius behind Burry’s $162 million investment. The key to value investing is it’s inherently contrarian, finding value in investments the stock market is overlooking. Using that framework, it’s easy to see why, despite being a $900 billion company, there are reasons to believe the market is still not fully pricing in Facebook’s potential. Much of this disconnect comes from the company’s lackluster executive leadership. Through a series of mismanaged crises, Facebook has angered lawmakers across both sides of the aisle, nearly the entire media industry, and even fellow big tech cohorts like Apple. Excluding the latter, it’s unlikely these stakeholders will be able to hurt Facebook’s growth. Admittedly, there are risks with Facebook stock. One recent risk has been a change in Apple’s iOS update, which prohibits the amount of tracking that apps like Facebook can perform on users browsing other apps and websites, commonly referred to as third-party tracking. Despite Facebook’s hyperbolic warnings that it could make ads less relevant and hurt small business, Apple’s update also increases the value of first-party data. Except for possibly Alphabet’s Google (see below), there’s no company with more first-party data on its user base than Facebook. To say Facebook underperformed its tech peers last year would be an understatement; the stock posted 33% returns in 2020. On the surface, this might appear like an amazing return, but Facebook underperformed most of the FAANG cohort (save for Alphabet). However, the company continued to post top-line growth of 22% in a harsh environment for advertising stocks. Look for the company’s top-line growth to accelerate. Analysts expect Facebook will post 35% revenue growth this fiscal year. Despite this strong top-line growth, shares continue to be priced at a minuscule premium of the greater S&P 500 on forward earnings multiple, 26 times versus 22.6 times. And therein lies the value.