The world’s greatest investors: Michael Burry

Michael Burry's ambitious bet against the American mortgage market earned him personal profits of $100m.

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Michael Burry made $100m for himself betting against American mortgages
(Image credit: Credit: Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo)

Michael Burry was born in 1971 in New York, and grew up in San Jose, California. He studied medicine at Vanderbilt University, but from 1996 onwards he became increasingly interested in the stockmarket, dispensing advice about various stocks on internet chat boards. Two years later, he quit medicine to retrain as a money manager. In 2000 he started a hedge fund called Scion Capital, which he ran until the summer of 2008. Since then he has managed his own money, and re-started Scion in 2013.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri