The physician-turned-investor who foresaw the 2008 mortgage crisis and bet against it — the hero of "The Big Short".
Life story
Michael Burry was born in 1971 in San Jose, California. He lost his left eye to retinoblastoma at age two and has worn a prosthetic eye since childhood. After a public high school he studied economics and pre-med at UCLA and graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1997. Little is publicly known about his parents' occupations or family background.
Burry concluded that he has Asperger syndrome after researching the condition following his son's diagnosis.
How they got started
During his residency at Stanford Hospital (neurology and pathology), Burry spent his off-duty time on his hobby, investing; he completed neither residency. From 1996 his value-investing posts on the Silicon Investor message boards caught the attention of Vanguard, White Mountains Insurance Group and the well-known investor Joel Greenblatt. In late 2000 he left medicine and launched Scion Capital with an inheritance and loans from his family (the name comes from Terry Brooks' novel "The Scions of Shannara").
From 2005 Burry focused on the US mortgage market. Having studied 2003–2004 lending practices, he predicted the housing bubble would burst by 2007 at the latest and bought credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds from banks such as Goldman Sachs. Before the bet paid off his investors revolted and demanded their money back. When the crisis hit in 2008, the trade earned him about $100 million personally and his investors more than $700 million. He then closed Scion Capital.
In 2013 Burry returned as Scion Asset Management, focusing on "real" assets such as water, farmland and gold. His story is told in Michael Lewis's "The Big Short" (2010), and Christian Bale played him in the 2015 film.
Investment style
Burry sees himself as a disciple of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd: the core idea is a "margin of safety" — buying things well below their value. He is comfortable going against the crowd, concentrates in few positions, and bets on declines with put options where he sees a bubble.
As a result his 13F filings are highly volatile: the portfolio can turn over almost completely from quarter to quarter, and options can show large "notional" amounts while the money actually at risk is much smaller.
Best decisions
Betting against subprime mortgages (2005–2008)
His CDS on mortgage bonds paid off in the crisis: about $100 million for Burry and more than $700 million for his investors. It remains one of the most famous contrarian trades on Wall Street.
From message board to fund (1996–2000)
A physician with no finance background attracted professional investors with his online analysis and started his own fund — a vivid example of the power of open, high-quality research.
Spotting GameStop early (2019–2021)
Burry invested in GameStop well before the 2021 meme-stock surge.
Biggest mistakes
The investor revolt (2006–2007)
Even a correct bet was painful: the fund showed losses before the payoff and investors demanded their money back. It shows that being right and being right on time are different things.
Exiting GameStop too early (2021)
Burry sold his GameStop stake before the dramatic early-2021 spike, missing the biggest part of the move.
Today
Scion Asset Management's SEC registration was terminated effective November 10, 2025. The last 13F before that (Q3 2025) showed put options on Nvidia and Palantir. In a letter to investors dated October 27, 2025, Burry wrote that his estimate of value had for some time been out of sync with the markets. He no longer files 13Fs, so the portfolio on this page reflects Q3 2025 and will not be updated.
Since November 2025 Burry has written a paid Substack newsletter, "Cassandra Unchained", about markets and especially what he sees as an AI bubble, and he remains active on X. He turns 55 in 2026.
What to learn from following the portfolio
- Burry's portfolio is no longer live: the last 13F is for Q3 2025. Read it as a historical record, not a current signal.
- Notional values of puts in his 13F are misleading — the capital actually at risk can be far smaller (about $9.2 million in the Palantir case). Don't read options as ordinary stock positions.
- 13Fs arrive up to 45 days late and Burry trades quickly: by the time a filing is public he may already be out. Copying is not a strategy.
- The useful part is the ideas: studying what he saw as "cheap" versus "bubble" is a good thinking exercise.
- From a halal perspective: tools such as put options and short selling are considered impermissible by many scholars; check the halal status of ordinary stock positions in the Portfolio tab.
An introduction based on public sources — not investment advice. Spotted an error? Let us know.