The Big Short Quotes

Michael Burry: I met my wife on match.com. My profile said that I'm a medical student with only one eye, an awkward social manner, and 145 thousand dollars in student loans. She wrote back, You're just what I've been looking for! She meant honest.

Movie: The Big Short
Mark Baum: [on cell phone]Hey... excuse me! Let me ask you this: What company treats its customers that shittily and succeeds?
Jared Vennett: [inaudible]
Mark Baum: [on cell phone]Fine... ok... Goldman...

Movie: The Big Short
Mark Baum: [of Collateralized Debt Obligation funds]So mortgage bonds are dog shit. CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit.

Movie: The Big Short
Jared Vennett: If the mortgage bonds were the match, then the CDOs were the kerosene soaked rags, then the synthetic CDO was the atomic bomb that the drunk President holding his finger over the button, it was at that moment in that dumb restaurant, with that stupid look on his face that Mark Baum realized the whole world economy might collapse.

Movie: The Big Short
Lawrence Fields: Your big mortgage bet concerns us. We have no confidence in your ability to identify macroeconomic trends.
Michael Burry: You flew here to tell me that? Why? I mean, anyone can see there's a real estate bubble.
Lawrence Fields: Actually, no one can see a bubble. That's what makes it a bubble.
Michael Burry: That's dumb, Lawrence. There are always markers. Mortgage fraud - it's quadrupled since 2000. Average take home pay is flat yet home prices are soaring. That means homes are debts not assets.
Martin Blaine: [sarcastically]So Mike Burry of San Jose, a guy who gets his hair cut at SuperCuts, and doesn't wear shoes, knows more than Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson?
Michael Burry: Dr. Mike Burry. And yes... he does.

Movie: The Big Short
Lawrence Fields: Are you being sarcastic with us, Mike?
Michael Burry: Lawrence, I don't know how to be sarcastic.

Movie: The Big Short
Mortgage Broker: So, is Morgan Stanley recruiting us? Is that...
Porter Collins: Oh, no. No. The bank owns our hedge fund but we're not really a part of it. We invest in financial service companies and we're trying to understand the residential mortgage business.
Mark Baum: How many loans do you write each month?
Mortgage Broker: Pffft! About sixty.
Mark Baum: What was it four years ago?
Mortgage Broker: Ten... maybe fifteen.
Mortgage Broker: Yeah, I was a bartender. Now I own a boat.
Danny Moses: You own a boat? So how many of these are, uh, adjustable rate mortgages?
Mortgage Broker: Well, most. Yeah, I'd say about ninety percent. The bonuses on those skyrocketed a few years ago. Adjustables are our bread and honey.
Danny Moses: So do applicants ever get rejected?
Mortgage Broker: [laughs]Seriously? Look, if they get rejected, I suck at my job.
Danny Moses: Even if they have no money?
Mortgage Broker: Well, my firm offers NINJA loans - no income, no job. I just leave the income section blank if I want. Corporate doesn't care. These people just want homes, you know, and they just go with the flow.
Danny Moses: Good for you.
Mark Baum: Your companies don't verify?
Mortgage Broker: If I write a loan on Friday afternoon, big bank will buy it by Monday lunch.

Movie: The Big Short
Vinnie Daniel: But wait, you *are* the bank, I mean, you work for the bank. I bet your margins are pretty nice and fat.
Jared Vennett: Let's not talk about my margins by the way. Being nice and fat... That's a nice shirt, do they make it for men?

Movie: The Big Short
Mark Baum: It's time to call bullshit.
Vinnie Daniel: Bullshit on what?
Mark Baum: Every fucking thing.

Movie: The Big Short
Ben Rickert: Just... Stop fuckin' dancing.

Movie: The Big Short
Michael Burry: Lawrence, I found something really interesting.
Lawrence Fields: Great, Michael. Whenever you find something interesting, we all tend to make money. What stock are you valuing?
Michael Burry: No stocks. I want to short the housing market.

Movie: The Big Short
Lawrence Fields: How big is your short position right now?
Michael Burry: Uhh... 1.3 billion.
Lawrence Fields: And the premiums?
Michael Burry: Well, we pay roughly 80 to 90 million each year, which is high but I was the first to do this trade. Watch, it will pay. I may have been early, but I'm not wrong.

Movie: The Big Short
Mark Baum: Jared? It's chaos down here! Where are we at?
Jared Vennett: [Walking into his bank's employee bathroom]And Caesar wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer. [Sees another employee, turns to him]
Jared Vennett: Shane? SHANE? [Shane leaves]
Jared Vennett: Well, nobody's buying CDOs and mortgage bonds anymore, and everybody wants swaps. Swaps are now the hottest thing on the street.
Mark Baum: Well, that's good for us.
Jared Vennett: Yes and no. I heard from somebody who heard from somebody- [Sees another employee walk]
Jared Vennett: No, Alex, no. Sorry. [Alex leaves]
Jared Vennett: Benny Cleaver over at Morgan's taking some heavy losses. Your ship might be taking on water. Might be time to get our lifejacket and get out. Oh, I'm jacked. I'm JACKED! I'M JACKED TO THE *TITS*!
Mark Baum: Okay, good.
Jared Vennett: You feel it?
Mark Baum: No. [Hangs up]

Movie: The Big Short
Michael Burry: It's only a matter of time before someone else sees this investment. We have to act now.
Lawrence Fields: And how do you know these bonds are built on subprime crap? Aren't they filled with hundreds of pages of mortgages?
Michael Burry: I read them.
Lawrence Fields: You read them? No one reads them. Only the lawyers who put them together read them.
Michael Burry: I don't think they even know what they made. The whole housing market is propped up on these bad loans. It's a time bomb, and I want to short it.
Lawrence Fields: Through what instrument, Michael? There are no insurance contracts or options for mortgage bonds! The bonds are too stable. No one would buy them.
Michael Burry: I'm going to get a bank to make me one. Then I'm going to buy a ton of them.

Movie: The Big Short
Mark Baum: Okay, look. If home prices don't go up, you are not going to be able to refinance. And you'll be stuck paying whatever your monthly payment is once it jumps up after your teaser rate expires. Your monthlies could go up two-, three-hundred percent.
Florida Strip Club Dancer: James says I can always refinance.
Mark Baum: Well, he's a liar. Actually, in this particular case, James probably is wrong.
Florida Strip Club Dancer: 200 percent? On all my loans?
Mark Baum: What do you mean all your loans? We're talking about two loans on one house, right?
Florida Strip Club Dancer: I have five houses... and a condo.

Movie: The Big Short
Mortgage Broker: Trust me, I'm not driving a 7-series without strippers. No one on the pole has good credit, and they're ALL cash-rich.
Porter Collins: Yeah, I think I read Warren Buffett say something like that in an article.
Mortgage Broker: Who's Warren Buffett?

Movie: The Big Short
Charlie Geller: Our investment-strategy was simple. People hate to think about bad things happening so they always underestimate their likelihood.

Movie: The Big Short
[repeated line] Mark Baum: I love my job.

Movie: The Big Short
Banker at Goldman Sachs: Ted had asked me to do some meeting prep but I couldn't find any marketing material on you guys.
Charlie Geller: Oh, we just moved here from Boulder.
Banker at Goldman Sachs: Yeah. Well, can we see your offering documents
Charlie Geller: Well, Brownfield is its own money.
Jamie Shipley: It's our money.
Banker at Goldman Sachs: Well, can you tell us how much you manage?
Charlie Geller: Of course. We're doing 30 million right now, uh, but we started four years ago with 110 thousand. So, as you can see, that's pretty phenomenal returns.
Jamie Shipley: We want to get an ISDA agreement so we can deal in long-term options. [subtitled: ISDA Agreement: An agreement that lets an investor sit at the 'big boy table' and make high level trades not available to stupid amateurs.Trying to be a high stakes trader without an ISDA is like trying to win the Indy 500 riding a llama]
Banker at Goldman Sachs: [in a slightly condescending tone]That's really cool. That is SO cool.
Charlie Geller: Thank you.
Banker at Goldman Sachs: But, uh... you guys are under the capital requirements for an ISDA.
Banker at Goldman Sachs: By how much?
Banker at Goldman Sachs: [thinking]Uh... how much? One billion, four hundred seventy million. So... a lot.
Charlie Geller: This makes us look bad, doesn't it? That we didn't know what the capital requirements were?
Banker at Goldman Sachs: Uh... it's not great. But keep up those returns and give us a call way down the line, you know. Okay?

Movie: The Big Short
Lawrence Fields: Michael, give me my money back. Michael, do you hear me? I want my money back. Give me my fucking money back, you motherfucker.

Movie: The Big Short
Lawrence Fields: [barging in]We have no confidence in your ability to identify macro-economic trends.
Michael Burry: You flew here to tell me that? Why? Every, e-e-anyone can see there's a real-estate bubble.
Lawrence Fields: Actually, no one can see a bubble, that's what makes it a bubble.
Michael Burry: That's dumb, Lawrence. There's always markers.

Movie: The Big Short
Jared Vennett: Now their foot's on fire and they think their steak is done, and you're surprised?
Mark Baum: That's not stupidity, that's fraud.
Jared Vennett: Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal, and I'll have my wife's brother arrested.

Movie: The Big Short
Casey: Thanks for coming guys, totally fucking awesome to see you.
Charlie Geller: Yeah. Casey, I've always hated you because you were a prick in college and you are a prick today!
Casey: Thanks Charlie! Still living with your mom?

Movie: The Big Short
Pub Goer: [to Ben sitting with his laptop doing deals]Who are you a drug-dealer or a banker? Cause if you're a banker you can fuck right off!

Movie: The Big Short
Vinnie Daniel: How come you don't hate this guy? He is everything you taught us not to trust.
Mark Baum: I can't hate him. He is so transparent in his self interest that I kind of respect him.

Movie: The Big Short
Margot Robbie: Basically, Lewis Ranieri's mortgage bonds were amazingly profitable for the big banks. They made billions and billions on their 2 fee they got for selling each of these bonds. But then, they started running out of mortgages to put in them. After all, there are only so many homes and so many people with good enough jobs to buy them, right? So, the banks started filling these bonds with riskier and riskier mortgages. That way, they can keep that profit machine churning, alright? By the way, these risky mortgages are called subprime. So, whenever you hear the word subprime, think shit. Our friend, Michael Burry, found out that these mortgage bonds that were supposedly 65 AAA, were actually just, mostly, full of shit, so now, he's going to short the bonds, which means to bet against. Got it? Good... Now, fuck off.

Movie: The Big Short
Jared Vennett: Chris, goddamnit.
Jared's Assistant (Chris): Sorry.

Movie: The Big Short
Jared Vennett: You smell that? What is that?
Mark Baum: What?
Jared Vennett: What's that smell?
Vinnie Daniel: Your cologne?
Jared Vennett: No. [pause and looks to his assistant]
Jared's Assistant (Chris): Opportunity.
Jared Vennett: No. Money.
Porter Collins: Ooh...
Jared Vennett: I smell money.

Movie: The Big Short
[repeated line] Jamie Shipley: No no no!

Movie: The Big Short