That's not quite true. Scion was up in 2001 and 2002 (when the market was down) and they beat the market in 2003 and 2004 - in each of those years, they were primarily a long-only equity fund.

I'm not sure what the performance was in 2005. In 2006 they were down 16% (because of premiums on their CDS positions) which they then recouped in 2007 and early 2008.