Top Stories This Week: Silver Price Breaks US$30, "Big Short" Investor Burry Gets into Gold

Bullet briefing — Burry gets into gold, Biden bans Russian uranium

Burry adds physical gold trust to portfolio

Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame made headlines this week when new regulatory filings showed that his firm added over 440,000 shares of the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (ARCA:PHYS) to its portfolio in Q1. The trust now makes up 7.37 percent of Scion Asset Management's holdings, and is its fifth largest component.

We last spoke about Burry in November 2022, when he said on X, formerly Twitter, that he's long thought the time for gold would be when "crypto scandals merge into contagion." He didn't elaborate and ultimately deleted the tweet, but at the time market watchers saw it as a reference to the collapse of crypto trading platform FTX and related issues.

While the gold price has been on the move this year, many of the experts I've been speaking with have emphasized that a gaining traction with a wider audience — as it seems to be doing — will help it really take off.

Biden bans Russian uranium imports

The uranium sector has been quieter for the last few months, but it was back in focus this week as US President Joe Biden signed into law a bill banning imports of uranium products from Russia. The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act has been making its way toward the president since late last year, and was widely expected to pass.

The ban is scheduled to go into effect on August 12, although waivers will be available for utilities until January 2028. Since it got the green light, Russian state-owned uranium supplier Tenex has sent out a force majeure notice and told its US customers they have 60 days to get waivers. The company's message went to American utilities including Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG), Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) and Dominion Energy (NYSE:D).

Additionally, the US government has issued a notice saying that next month it will be asking American suppliers to bid on contracts for as much as US$3.4 billion worth of low-enriched uranium. Currently the country has only one commercial enrichment facility. It is located in New Mexico and owned by Urenco.