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Legends

Ray Dalio

Bridgewater Associates, 1975–2022

Not a classic value investor: global macro: bets on economies, rates and currencies, not individual companies

Historical: his record and what he built, not a list of holdings.

Ray Dalio started Bridgewater in 1975 from his New York apartment and built it into the world's largest hedge fund. Rather than picking companies, it bets on economies: interest rates, currencies, bonds and commodities. His All Weather approach, which balances assets by risk, shaped how big pension funds invest, and his book Principles made him one of the best-known investors alive. He handed over control in 2022 and sold the last of his stake in 2025.

Record

  • 1991–June 2022: Bridgewater's flagship Pure Alpha II fund returned 11.4% a year on average, according to a person familiar with its results (Bridgewater doesn't publish them). It gained 32% in the first half of 2022, when shares and bonds both fell. (Bloomberg, 5 Jul 2022)
  • By the end of 2018 Bridgewater had made $57.8 billion for its investors since it began, more than any other hedge fund, on LCH Investments' count. (Institutional Investor, 27 Jan 2019, citing LCH Investments)

About Ray Dalio

Born 8 August 1949 in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. Studied finance at Long Island University (C.W. Post College) and took an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1973. Started Bridgewater in 1975 from a small New York apartment; it became the world's largest hedge fund. Launched Pure Alpha, which bets on rates, currencies, bonds and commodities, in 1991, and All Weather, which spreads money across assets by risk so it can cope with any economic climate, in 1996. On 30 September 2022 he handed control of Bridgewater to its board and stepped down as co-chief investment officer. In July 2025 he sold the last of his stake and left the board. He now invests his own money through the Dalio Family Office. Its first 13F, for the end of 2025, showed about $503 million in US-listed funds, mostly a gold fund.

    Sources: en.wikipedia.org, wealthmanagement.com, bloomberg.com, news.bgov.com

    Bridgewater's big bets are on bonds, currencies and futures, which a 13F doesn't show; its 13F is a very wide spread of shares and index funds, so we don't list it as Dalio's portfolio, especially since he left. The return figures come from people familiar with the funds and from LCH Investments; Bridgewater doesn't publish them.

    Past returns don’t predict future ones. Nothing here is investment advice.