Who Actually Made Money From The Crash In The Big Short (And How Much)

The big short Tells the story of the 2007 housing market crash and how a few key characters, who are based on real-life people, significantly benefited from the financial crisis. Michael Burry (Christian Bale) was at the center of it all since he was the one who predicted that the housing market would crash and used the information for his own benefit and to help his investors. Barry founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, allowing others to profit from the crisis that resulted in millions of lost jobs and homes.

Other figures represented in The big short are Steve Carell as Mark Baum, Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett, John Magaro as Charlie Geller, and Finn Wittrock as Jamie Shipley. All five characters, including Barry, made money from the crash in the housing market, as depicted in Adam McKay’s satirical film. However, their earnings from the late 2000s financial crisis very varied – some made upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars, while others earned tens of millions.

Michael Burry makes $100 million in the big short

Christian Bale’s character went away much richer

As shown in The big shortMichael Burry, an investor and hedge fund manager, theorized that the United States housing market would crash in 2007 a couple of years earlier. He realized that the market was unstable by looking at high-risk subprime loans. Therefore, deciding to take matters into his own hands and bet on his forecast, Barry shorted market-based mortgage-backed securities. According to Vanity FairAfter Berry’s theory came to fruition in real life, He made $100 million for himself and $725 million for his investors through Scion Capital.

Shortly after the crash, Barry shut down the hedge fund due to a tarnished reputation, audits from the IRS and to explore other investment opportunities. Despite closing Scion Capital, Burry still made personal investments The big short In real life. Just a few years after the housing market crash, he reopened his hedge fund and rebranded it as Scion Asset Management.

In August 2023, Barry predicted there would be another stock market crash, so the investment firm purchased $866 million in put options against a fund tracking the S&P 500 and $739 million against a fund tracking the Nasdaq 100. So even after the Despite the backlash he faces after the 2000s financial crisis, Barry continues to make money.

The realtor Mark Baum gained 1 billion dollars from the crash in the housing market

Steve Carell’s great short character was much more than Christian Bale

Steve Carell played Mark Baum in The big short. Baum is based on Steve Eisman, but the producers changed his name for the film. Eisman was the hedge fund manager of FrontPoint Partners, a small independent trading firm, and he is notorious for shorting collateralized debt obligations to profit from the collapse of the United States housing bubble in the late 2000s.

As a result, Eisman (or Baum in the 2015 movie) and his team made $1 billion from the market crash (via Telegraph and the film). It is unclear how much money Eisman himself personally took home, but he certainly earned millions of dollars.

The real Jared Vennett made $47 million from swap sales

The Deutsche Bank executive hit it big after learning about Michael Burry’s theory

Jared Vennett, played by Ryan Gosling, was another fake name used in The big short. In fact, Vennett was based on Greg Lippmann, a hedge fund manager and Deutsche Bank’s executive in charge of global asset-backed securities trading. He learned about Michael Berry’s powerful theory and decided to sell swaps. He, too, was banking on the housing market crash, and Lippmann ultimately brought home $47 million due to the swap salesAs depicted near the end of The big short.

Charlie Geller & Jamie Shipley make $80 million in the big short

The great short letters of John Magaro and Finn Wittrock are co-heads of a private financial investment corporation

The big short Also tells the story of Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock). The film changed the two men’s last names, with Jamie’s real name being Mai and Charlie’s being Ledley. Jamie and Charlie co-head Cornwall Capital (Brownfield Fund in the movie), a private financial investment corporation in New York City. They came to learn about the prediction of the housing market crash in 2007, and just like the other significant figures depicted in the film, Jamie and Charlie used the knowledge.

Jamie and Charlie shorted the subprime mortgage market before the late 2000s financial crisis. As a result, they made around $80 million from their efforts to profit from the crashAccording to the film.

What the real people of the big short are so far

Given how fascinating the story behind it is The big short Yes, it is understandable that a lot of people are curious about what happened to some of the key players after the events of the movie. As would be expected with the amount of success they all had in shorting the housing market, most of the key players remain in the world of finance, although many of them are not in the positions they were in as depicted in the movie.

After partnering to make millions on the risky deal, Charles Ledley and Jamie May went their separate ways with new endeavors. Leadley left Cornwall Capital in 2009 and joined Highfields Capital Management in 2010 and continues to work there. May, on the other hand, chose to stay at Cornwall Capital, eventually becoming the CEO. While they don’t collaborate at their old hedge fund, Ledley and Mai are both members of the board of directors for the think tank The Tobin Project (by rush). Greg Lippmann left Deutsche Bank in 2010 and started his own hedge fund, LibreMax Capital.

Steve Eisman left Frontpoint, the company he was with in the movie, in 2011. He now works as managing director of the Eisman Group alongside his parents. Despite witnessing the market crash first hand, Eisman is more confident than others that changes are being made in response And that the same thing will not happen again. he shares (by The Globe and Mail):

“If you read the papers, you sometimes feel like it could happen again, and from where I’m sitting, that’s just not true. The regulators learned the hard way how wrong they were, and they’ve done a lot to fix it.” A lot of the banking system is probably not that safe in my lifetime.

Michael Berry is less sure that a lesson was learned in the market crash. As stated in the epilogue of The big shortBurry was targeted by several audits in the wake of his profits, and although he offered to explain how he saw the crash coming, the government did not take him up on his offer. In 2010, Barry took these concerns public when He wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times With the title “I saw the crisis coming. Why didn’t the Fed?”.