In 2005, Burry started to focus on the subprime market. By the end of 2004, he was managing $600 million and turning money away." The next year, 2003, the stock market finally turned around and rose 28.69%, but Burry beat it again, with returns of 50%. The next year, the S&P 500 fell again, by 22.1%, and Scion was up again: 16%. Burry was able to achieve these returns by shorting overvalued tech stocks at the peak of the internet bubble.
#The big short michael burry full#
According to author Michael Lewis, "in his first full year, 2001, the S&P 500 fell 11.88%. He quickly earned extraordinary profits for his investors. He named it after Terry Brooks' The Scions of Shannara (1990), one of his favorite novels. He has said more than once that his investment style is built upon Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s 1934 book Security Analysis: "All my stock picking is 100% based on the concept of a margin of safety." Īfter shutting down his website in November 2000, Burry started the hedge fund Scion Capital, funded by an inheritance and loans from his family. Burry has a strictly traditional understanding of value. He was so successful with his stock picks that he attracted the interest of companies such as Vanguard, White Mountains Insurance Group and prominent investors such as Joel Greenblatt. He had already developed a reputation as an investor by demonstrating success in value investing, which he wrote about on message boards on the stock discussion site Silicon Investor beginning in 1996. He then left to start his own hedge fund. Investment career Īfter medical school, Burry worked as a Stanford Hospital neurology resident, then a Stanford Hospital pathology resident.
#The big short michael burry license#
ĭespite not practicing, Burry has kept his license as a physician active with the Medical Board of California, including continuing education requirements.
While off duty at night, he worked on his hobby, financial investing. from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and started but did not finish his residency in neurology at Stanford University Medical Center.
He studied economics and pre-med at the University of California, Los Angeles, earned an M.D. As a teenager, he attended Santa Teresa High School. At the age of two he lost his left eye to retinoblastoma and has had an artificial eye ever since. Burry was born and grew up in San Jose, California.