Bridgewater Associates, which is based in Westport, Connecticut, was founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. He operated Bridgewater out of his two-bedroom apartment. The American investment management firm manages approximately $160 billion in global investments. His clientele include foreign governments and central banks, corporate and pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations. Bridgewater Associates is now the largest hedge fund in the world. The firm grew from 100 employees in 2003 to approximately 1400 employees now. Its headquarters is described as retreat-like and is surrounded by the trees of a former nature reserve. They operate an an international, employee-owned hedge fund manager.
Bridgewater Associates …show more content…
The firm, in its own words, describes All Weather as a strategy and approach to asset allocation that “leverages up low risk assets and deleverages high risk assets so the expected returns and risks of all the assets in the portfolio are roughly the same.” The fund aims to create high, risk-adjusted returns that exceeded the return of the general market. It is predicted on the notion that asset classes react in understandable ways based on the relationship of their cash flows to the economic environment. By balancing asset based on these structural characteristics the impact of economic surprises can be minimized. Including last year, All Weather has generated an average 12.4% return for investors in each of the last five years. The fund is built around risk-parity strategy. The strategy is passive and requires no prediction of future …show more content…
While many Hedge funds try to mimic successful strategies of others’, Bridgewater came up with their own successful strategies.
Dalio encouraged openness and transparency and seek for continuous improvements.
At some hedge funds, client service is an afterthought. Bridgewater’s investors receive a daily newsletter, monthly performance updates, quarterly reviews, and conference-call briefings from Dalio and other senior executives. Many hedge funds were very secretive. By being more transparent, investors were more willing to invest, especially if the investment amount was huge. Dalio attracted large streams of money.
Many hedge funds make concentrated bets in order to make huge returns. For example, George Soros shorted some ten billion dollars’ worth of sterling in 1992. John Paulson made several billion dollars betting on the subprime. On the contrary, Dalio said “Given that I’m never sure, I don’t want to have any concentrated bets.”
Many hedge funds deviated from their investment styles and become overconfident after a successful big bet (For example John Paulson ). However, Dalio remained consistent. He focused on long-term consistent profits rather than short-term