Finance Trends Letter

If you're an investor or market observer you've probably heard of Ray Dalio , founder of Bridgewater Associates. With $169 billion is assets under management, Bridgewater is the world's largest hedge fund firm.  So what can those of us with considerably less money learn from Mr. Dalio? Well, we've shared some lessons from this Hedge Fund Market Wizard with you in the past. Now, let's hear from Ray Dalio in this Bloomberg Markets panel discussion with that firm's hugely successful founder, Michael Bloomberg. How Ray Dalio runs his mega-hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, Bloomberg video . (Hat tip: Exploring Markets ). Highlights and key quotes from Ray Dalio and Michael Bloomberg's talk: "We're just living out what we're like. For me, Bridgewater, in a nutshell, is meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truth and radical transparency. It means we can talk about anything, including mistakes or weaknesses, so ...

Hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio credits meditation as the key to his success.  Says the Bridgewater Associates founder, "Meditation has given me centeredness and creativity. It's also given me peace and health...  and it's given me open-mindedness."  "Meditation, more than anything in my life, was the biggest ingredient of whatever success I've had" . I was very interested to hear Dalio's take on the benefits of meditation, since he's obviously a very successful individual who assigns a great deal of value to this practice. It's also a subject I've been wanting to learn more about. While I am not a yoga practitioner and have never tried transcendental meditation, I've come to learn that my long walks through the forests may share some benefits associated with mindfulness meditation . For me, it's about taking time to exercise, relax, and just focus on the natural (or built) world around us. As Dalio notes, the key for...

* Photo credit : Ray Dalio Blog . In our second installment of " Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards ", we'll offer up some trading and macroeconomic insights pulled from Jack Schwager's interview with Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates.  You've probably heard of Ray Dalio if you have even a cursory knowledge of the hedge fund industry (or the Forbes billionaires list), so let's get right to it. These notes will fill in the rest of the story.  1) . Dalio is the founder and former CEO (now "mentor") of Bridgewater Associates, a fund that has returned more money ($50 billion) for investors than any hedge fund in history.   2) . Bridgewater still manages to achieve excellent returns on a huge base of capital and has done so over a long period of time. It is among the few hedge funds with a 20-year track record.  3) . Dalio believes that mistakes are a good thing , as they provide an opportunity for learning. If he could figure out what ...

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is eager to pay back "scarlet letter" TARP funds, saying that his firm has the cash to pay back the government tomorrow. Bloomberg has the story : " JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon , who today reported first-quarter profit that beat analysts’ expectations, said his firm could repay U.S. government rescue funds “tomorrow.” Dimon, calling money received through the Troubled Asset Relief Program “a scarlet letter” and “the TARP baby,” said on a conference call today that the New York-based bank is awaiting guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department. “We could pay it back tomorrow,” he said. The 53-year-old CEO took $25 billion in U.S. government rescue funds last year. He’s fared better than most of his rivals in guiding the company through the financial crisis, taking $33.3 billion in writedowns, losses and credit provisions through the fourth quarter. That compares with $88.3 billion at New York-based Citigroup...

Last week, in our post on the Fortune profile of Bridgewater Associates and its chief, Ray Dalio , I mentioned that we'd be keeping an eye on whether or not Bridgewater would join the rather select group of investors eligible to invest in the Treasury's public-private investment partnership (PPIP). As it turns out, Bridgewater has decided not to invest in the PPIP. Ray Dalio offers his reasons for not joining the plan in this letter to investors , excerpt courtesy of Clusterstock. I'm not sure I understand all the issues at work here, but the gist of the argument seems to be that Dalio sees a clear conflict of interest for the few investment firms eligible to be the "fund managers" that would purchase toxic assets from banks. He also sees a great deal of political risk for investors in the plan, due to perceived collusion among the group: " Then there is the issue about the political risk , which we are more concerned about because there will be such a limit...

Ray Dalio was recently interviewed for a Fortune magazine profile of Bridgewater Associates, the "world's biggest hedge fund" . You may know Dalio as founder and chief of said hedge fund; his views on the markets and the economy (see our related articles and posts below) are already a popular draw with traders and investors across the globe, as well as Finance Trends readers. So, let's get to the new stuff... Here's the lead in from Fortune's piece : "Is the current downturn merely a severe slump, or are we facing a second coming of the Great Depression? That's the question everyone is asking these days. But Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and manager of what is now the world's biggest hedge fund, has been preparing to answer it for eight years. In 2001 he had his investment team build a "depression gauge" into the firm's computer system, line by line in the code, to adjust the portfolio's strategy and risk profile i...

Hedge fund manager and Bridgewater Associates founder, Ray Dalio talks to Barron's this week about the global economic downturn and ongoing deleveraging process (H/T: Paul Kedrosky ). Here's an excerpt from the Barron's interview : " Barron's : I can't think of anyone who was earlier in describing the deleveraging and deflationary process that has been happening around the world. Dalio : Let's call it a "D-process," which is different than a recession, and the only reason that people really don't understand this process is because it happens rarely. Everybody should, at this point, try to understand the depression process by reading about the Great Depression or the Latin American debt crisis or the Japanese experience so that it becomes part of their frame of reference. Most people didn't live through any of those experiences, and what they have gotten used to is the recession dynamic, and so they are quick to presume the recession dynam...

If you stopped by FT Alphaville yesterday, you may have already seen mention of Financial Times' interview with hedge fund manager Ray Dalio , of Bridgewater Associates. The full article is available at the link above (FT.com), and it is an interesting profile of one of the hedge fund world's most highly regarded figures. Here are a few excerpts from the piece: "Mr Dalio, who founded his company, Bridgewater Associates, more than 30 years ago, is relentless in his pursuit of difference. He tracks his funds' correlations to the market and quickly tacks away whenever they appear to converge. His singular view has shown results, propelling Bridgewater to become a highly regarded $150bn institutional manager as well as the third biggest hedge fund manager in the world. Bridgewater's hedge funds typically returned about 15 per cent a year, after fees, for the past 15 years. In 2007 the performance range was 9 to 11.2 per cent, net of fees, for its three hedge funds, a r...