From Burry's point of view at the time, Goldman Sachs had been moving to his side of the subprime short trade as early as December 2006 and was working to get into the trade even bigger in spring 2007.

Judge as of 2011-04-05 on the historical record. True: documentary evidence (e.g. the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 2011 report on Goldman Sachs, Goldman internal emails, or trade records) shows Goldman began shifting to a net short position on subprime mortgages by about December 2006 and sought to enlarge that short position in spring 2007. Mostly true: the shift and the expansion are documented, but the start date is off by a month or two (e.g. late 2006 to January 2007), or the expansion came in early summer rather than spring. Mixed: one part is documented (the December 2006 shift) but the evidence shows Goldman was not trying to enlarge its short in spring 2007 (e.g. it was reducing or covering), or the reverse. Mostly false: Goldman did go short, but materially later (e.g. mid-2007 or later), or only hedged and was never net short. False: the records show Goldman was not short subprime during that period.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Goldman Sachs on Capitol Hill: Testimony of Michael Swenson CBS News · 27 April 2010

   “On December 14, 2006, David Viniar, the firm's CFO, called a meeting to go over the mortgage department's positions and risk. I attended a portion of that meeting, during which we discussed the ABS positions and the need to reduce the basis risk in the book.”

2. E2 Goldman Sachs on Capitol Hill: Testimony of Michael Swenson CBS News · 27 April 2010

   “In the second quarter of 2007, the ABS desk covered several billion notional in single-names and purchased hundreds of millions of ABX long positions as the ABX index recovered These transactions reduced the desk's short position, in effect bringing the desk to a more balanced position.”

3. E3 Goldman Sachs on Capitol Hill: Testimony of Josh Birnbaum CBS News · 27 April 2010

   “When those short positions bumped up against the risk parameters for our book during the Spring and Summer of 2007, my group was instructed to cover them.”

4. E4 Goldman Sachs on Capitol Hill: Testimony of Josh Birnbaum CBS News · 27 April 2010

   “In line with my view, our desk began to accumulate short positions, purchasing protection on individual securities through credit default swaps, largely from external CDO managers who asked us to bid for these positions.”

E1 dates a December 14, 2006 meeting on reducing basis risk but does not show Goldman moving toward a short position then, and E4's account of the desk building shorts gives no date. For spring 2007, E2 shows the ABS desk reducing its short while E3 says the short positions reached risk limits in that period, and neither speaks for Goldman as a whole, so the evidence does not settle either part of the claim.