Investment career
Burry left work as a Stanford Hospital neurology resident to become a full-time investor and start his own hedge fund. He had already developed a reputation as an investor by demonstrating astounding success in "
value investing," which he wrote about on
message boards on the stock discussion site
Silicon Investor beginning in 1996. He was so successful with his stock picks that he attracted the interest of such companies as
Vanguard,
White Mountains Insurance Group and such prominent investors as
Joel Greenblatt.
After shutting down his web site in November 2000, Burry started Scion Capital, funded by a small inheritance and loans from his family. The company was named after
The Scions of Shannara, a favorite childhood book. Burry quickly earned extraordinary profits for his investors. According to Lewis, "in his first full year, 2001, the
S&P 500 fell 11.88 percent. Scion was up 55 percent. The next year, the S&P 500 fell again, by 22.1 percent, and yet Scion was up again: 16 percent. The next year, 2003, the stock market finally turned around and rose 28.69 percent, but Mike Burry beat it again—his investments rose by 50 percent. By the end of 2004, Mike Burry was managing $600 million and turning money away."
[3]
In 2005, Burry started to focus on the
subprime market. Through his analysis of mortgage lending practices in 2003 and 2004, he correctly forecast a
bubble would collapse as early as 2007. Burry's research on the runaway values of residential real estate convinced him that
subprime mortgages, especially those with
"teaser" rates, and the bonds based on these mortgages would begin losing value when the original rates reset, often in as little as two years after initiation. This conclusion led Burry to
short the market by persuading
Goldman Sachs to sell him
credit default swaps against subprime deals he saw as vulnerable. This analysis proved correct, and Burry profited accordingly.
[5][6][7] Ironically Burry's since said, "I don't go out looking for good shorts. I'm spending my time looking for good longs. I shorted mortgages because I had to. Every bit of logic I had led me to this trade and I had to do it".
[1]
Though he suffered an investor revolt before his predictions came true, Burry earned a personal profit of $100 million and a profit for his remaining investors of more than $700 million.
[3] Scion Capital ultimately recorded returns of 489.34 percent (net of fees and expenses) between its November 1, 2000 inception and June 2008. The S&P 500 returned just over two percent over the same period.
[3]
According to his website, Burry liquidated his credit default swap short positions by April 2008 and did not benefit from the taxpayer-funded bailouts of
2008 and
2009.
[8] He subsequently liquidated his company to focus on his personal investment portfolio.
[8]
In an April 3, 2010,
op-ed for the
The New York Times, Burry argued that anyone who studied the financial markets carefully in 2003, 2004, and 2005 could have recognized the growing risk in the subprime markets.
[9] He faulted federal regulators for failing to listen to warnings from outside a closed circle of advisors.
[9][7]
In April 2011, Burry suggested: (1) Open a bank account in Canada, (2) there are opportunities in small cap stocks, and (3) blue chips may be less attractive than their price-earnings suggests.
[10][11]
Burry was portrayed by
Academy Award-winning
British actor Christian Bale in the biographical comedy-drama film
The Big Short.
Personal life
Burry is married with children and lives in California.[4] His son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and Burry believes he himself has Asperger after reading about the disorder.
WHY IS EVERY MOTHERfukkER WITH ASPERGER SOME GENIUS.... dude was killing the stocks on another level even before the sub prime loans.... all i know is, i'm investing in water... and doing everything this man says.... forever
when I realized the cat that adapted this into a movie was the same guy behind Anchorman and Talladega Nights. 
to me.