Michael Burry

Michael Burry was a medical doctor who taught himself investing through online message boards and eventually founded Scion Capital. Starting in 2005, Burry did something almost no one else on Wall Street bothered to do: he actually read the prospectuses of mortgage-backed securities, analyzing the individual loans backing them. What he found was alarming — loans with no documentation, adjustable rates that would reset to unaffordable levels, and fraud at every level of the origination process. He began buying credit default swaps against subprime mortgage bonds.

For nearly two years, Burry endured intense pressure. His investors threatened to pull their money. His own team questioned his sanity. The premiums on his CDS positions were costly and the housing market kept rising. But Burry held firm, trusting his meticulous analysis over market consensus. When the crash finally came in 2007-2008, Scion Capital earned a return of 489% (net of fees and expenses). The fund generated approximately $700 million in profits, and Burry personally earned around $100 million. His story was immortalized in Michael Lewis's "The Big Short" and the subsequent Oscar-winning film.