By mid-2005 Michael Burry bought credit default swaps on billions of dollars of subprime mortgage-backed securities and bonds of financial companies.

Test: Burry, through Scion Capital, bought credit default swaps (CDS) on both (a) subprime mortgage-backed securities and (b) bonds of financial companies. The combined notional amount reached billions of dollars, and the buying had begun by mid-2005 (about the end of June or July 2005). - True: fund records, investor letters or credible reporting show CDS purchases in both categories begun by mid-2005, with total notional of at least $1 billion before the 2007–08 crisis. - Mostly true: both categories and billions in notional hold, but the first purchases came a few months after mid-2005 (later in 2005). - Mixed: only one of the two categories is documented at billions of notional, or the billions figure applies only to the combined total in a way that leaves one category trivial. - Mostly false: he bought such CDS, but total notional stayed well below $1 billion, or buying started only in 2006 or later. - False: evidence shows he did not buy CDS on subprime MBS or on financial companies' bonds.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Betting on the Blind Side | Business | Vanity Fair Vanity Fair (excerpt from Michael Lewis, The Big Short) · April 2010

   “On May 19, 2005, Mike Burry did his first subprime-mortgage deals. He bought $60 million of credit-default swaps from Deutsche Bank—$10 million each on six different bonds.”

2. E2 Betting on the Blind Side | Business | Vanity Fair Vanity Fair (excerpt from Michael Lewis, The Big Short) · April 2010

   “In October 2005, in his letter to investors, Burry finally came completely clean and let them know that they owned at least a billion dollars in credit-default swaps on subprime-mortgage bonds.”

3. E3 Michael Burry's Testimony Before The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission ValueWalk · 29 March 2011 Own record

   “I actually instead moved to purchasing some credit default protection on some financial companies and that was a result of something else.”

4. E4 Michael Burry's Testimony Before The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission ValueWalk · 29 March 2011 Own record

   “Yeah, so those were corporate CDS trades.”

E1 (Lewis excerpt, independent) dates Burry's first subprime-mortgage CDS purchases to May 19, 2005, at $60 million notional. E1 dates his first subprime-mortgage CDS purchases to May 19, 2005, and E2 says that by October 2005 his investors held at least $1 billion in subprime-mortgage CDS, so the subprime category is documented as starting before mid-2005 and reaching at least $1 billion before the crisis. The financial-company category rests only on Burry's own testimony (E3), which gives no dates or amounts. In E4 he describes certain trades as corporate CDS trades; the quoted text does not say which trades. Only one of the two categories, subprime-mortgage CDS, is documented at a notional of at least $1 billion; E3 mentions protection on financial companies but gives no amount, which matches the "mixed" criterion.