Michael Burry said that, during the same period, he also watched ratings agencies vouch for subprime mortgage-backed securities.

This is a claim about what Burry said. True: Burry's published writing or remarks from about 2010-04 (e.g. his April 2010 New York Times op-ed) contain the statement that, in the same period, he watched ratings agencies vouch for subprime mortgage-backed securities, and it is well documented that the agencies did give such securities high ratings. Mostly true: the statement is in his writing, with a small difference in date or wording. Mixed: he made a related but substantially different statement. Mostly false: the statement is wrongly attributed in a material way, e.g. it belongs to a different text and is distorted in meaning. False: there is no such statement by Burry and the record shows a different author or contrary content.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 MBS Ratings and the Mortgage Credit Boom Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports (Staff Report no. 449) · May 2010

   “Prior to the crisis, 80-95% of a typical subprime or Alt-A mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) deal was assigned the”

2. E2 Mass Credit Rating Downgrades — Levin–Coburn Financial Crisis Report U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (Levin–Coburn report, hosted by Reports That Matter) · 13 April 2011

   “In the years leading up to the financial crisis, Moody's and S&P together issued investment grade ratings for tens of thousands of RMBS and CDO securities, earning substantial sums for issuing these ratings.”

3. E3 Mass Credit Rating Downgrades — Levin–Coburn Financial Crisis Report U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (Levin–Coburn report, hosted by Reports That Matter) · 13 April 2011

   “During the first half of 2007, despite the news of failing subprime lenders and increasing subprime mortgage defaults, Moody's and S&P continued to issue AAA credit ratings for a large number of RMBS and CDO securities.”

4. E4 Mass Credit Rating Downgrades — Levin–Coburn Financial Crisis Report Reports That Matter (hosting the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report) · 13 April 2011

   “During the first half of 2007, despite the news of failing subprime lenders and increasing subprime mortgage defaults, Moody's and S&P continued to issue AAA credit ratings for a large number of RMBS and CDO securities.”

5. E5 Mass Credit Rating Downgrades — Levin–Coburn Financial Crisis Report Reports That Matter (hosting the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report) · 13 April 2011

   “In the years leading up to the financial crisis, Moody's and S&P together issued investment grade ratings for tens of thousands of RMBS and CDO securities, earning substantial sums for issuing these ratings.”

6. E6 Mass Credit Rating Downgrades — Levin–Coburn Financial Crisis Report Reports That Matter (hosting the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report) · 13 April 2011

   “Analysts have determined that, by 2010, over 90% of subprime RMBS securities issued in 2006 and 2007 and originally rated AAA had been downgraded to junk status by Moody's and S&P.”

7. E7 Michael Burry: I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn't the Fed? GuruFocus.com · 6 April 2010

   “Throughout 2004, I had watched as these mortgages were offered to more and more subprime borrowers — those with the weakest credit.”

8. E8 NY Times Op-Ed: I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn't the Fed? - By Michael J. Burry Value Investing World · 4 April 2010 Own record

   “But the signs were all there in 2005, when a bursting of the bubble would have had far less dire consequences, and when the government could have acted to minimize the fallout.”

9. E9 Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 19 September 2008 Own record

   “Credit rating agencies came under scrutiny following the mortgage crisis for giving investment-grade, "money safe" ratings to securitized mortgages (in the form of securities known as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO)) based on "non-prime"—subprime or Alt-A—mortgages loans.”

10. E10 Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 19 September 2008 Own record

    “The pools of debt the agencies gave their highest ratings to included over three trillion dollars of loans to homebuyers with bad credit and undocumented incomes through 2007.”

E9 and E10 reproduce Burry's April 2010 New York Times op-ed. The passages quoted from them cover his watching subprime lending in 2004 and the warning signs in 2005, but neither includes the sentence about ratings agencies vouching for subprime mortgage-backed securities. Independent sources (E3, E4, E8) document that Moody's and S&P gave investment-grade and AAA ratings to such securities, which supports the substance of the statement. However, the excerpts in the evidence do not include this sentence, so the attribution to Burry cannot be confirmed from the material reviewed.