Latest from Bridgewater

[Kevin K.]

Interesting analysis from Ray Dalio and company:

https://mailchi.mp/newsletter.bwater.co ... a13cfb2210

Of course this is only an excerpt from and concise summary of a much longer and more detailed missive sent to their hedge fund clients. I don't think anyone here would take what they say as intended to suggest actionable moves for individual investors (though I've seen that misunderstanding on Bogleheads almost as often as I've seen folks conflate Bridgewater's All Weather hedge fund with Tony Robbin's Dalio-inspired All Seasons Portfolio).

My take-aways: a good time to own real assets and a great time to hold onto your gold, making sure it's at least 20% of holdings. No plans to load up on Chinese currency, Mexican real estate or Brazilian natural resources myself but I think everything they're saying is positive for the PP and GB and bad news for conventional all-U.S. Three Fund portfolios and the like.

It's really cool that they share some of these insights and big picture overviews with the public.

[Smith1776]

Phenomenal link. Thank you for sharing. The mention of what they call "AltCash" is something I found very enticing. I feel like there's many layers behind that term in their thinking and that they are likely keeping a lot of their cards close to the vest.

[glennds]

Ray Dalio is captivating and I love listening to him probably as much as I believe he loves listening to himself.

The thing is, I often find myself asking whether he is more master investor or master salesman.

Considering that a qualified investor in the Bridgewater world will need to show up with $7.5B in investable assets, it's a fairly elite and institutional club, and a very good niche to have secured. He and his team know what to say and what to feed such clients, and choosing Bridgewater is a defensible decision that the asset manager clients can present to their boards.
Paying millions in fees to Dalio ($4M/year minimum for Alpha) is also defensible if your institution is in the company of a herd of who's who institutions and endowments who are doing the same.

So all this in mind, I find myself scratching my head wondering if there are pearls of wisdom coming out of this machine that hold any application in my world. Maybe, maybe not.
But my god, the man is articulate and engaging.

[Kevin K.]

Ray Dalio is captivating and I love listening to him probably as much as I believe he loves listening to himself.

The thing is, I often find myself asking whether he is more master investor or master salesman.

Considering that a qualified investor in the Bridgewater world will need to show up with $7.5B in investable assets, it's a fairly elite and institutional club, and a very good niche to have secured. He and his team know what to say and what to feed such clients, and choosing Bridgewater is a defensible decision that the asset manager clients can present to their boards.
Paying millions in fees to Dalio ($4M/year minimum for Alpha) is also defensible if your institution is in the company of a herd of who's who institutions and endowments who are doing the same.

So all this in mind, I find myself scratching my head wondering if there are pearls of wisdom coming out of this machine that hold any application in my world. Maybe, maybe not.
But my god, the man is articulate and engaging.

So true. And your comments about Bridgewater's performance vs. a simple index fund portfolio remind me of John Greaney (the pioneer of early retirement web sites), who has a wicked sense of humor and said this about complex, slice-and-dice Modern Portfolio Theory allocations vs. simpler ones:

"While the MPT portfolio value has trailed the simple S&P500/fixed income portfolio (No. 1 above) by 32% as of Dec 31, 2019, advocates of this approach like its reduced volatility and sterling academic recommendations. Which brings us to an important investing truism -- it's OK to underperform as long as you're pleased with the results and proud of what you are doing."

Actually his whole post may be of interest to some here as he includes the PP in his retirement portfolio options. He trashes it early on but interestingly it does quite well during the more recent time frame of his study:

https://retireearlyhomepage.com/reallife20.html

[boglerdude]

If trading is zero sum, no one's going to divulge info that goes against their trade

They have a system for keeping info inside
https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/commen ... s/cr5t14t/
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/ ... ufactured/

[ppnewbie]

Great thread!

[mathjak107]

If trading is zero sum, no one's going to divulge info that goes against their trade

They have a system for keeping info inside
https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/commen ... s/cr5t14t/
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/ ... ufactured/

Trading is not zero sum though ...I can make money ,sell the stock to you , you can make money and sell it to xan who can sell it and make money ...options are zero sum but not stock trading ....

Look at cathie woods , she has a news letter announcing her trades getting people interested and driving those holdings up higher