Ray Dalio saw the light in Singapore.
The hedge fund legend and founder of Bridgewater Associates was attending a Taylor Swift concert in the Lion City when the idea came roaring into his mind: T Swizzle is the answer to all our problems.
Related: Single Best Trade: Wall Street veteran picks Palantir stock
"@taylorswift for President!" Dalio Instagrammed alongside a roundly mocked selfie. "I just saw her at her concert in Singapore and realized that she can bring together Americans and people in most countries much better than either of the candidates and that bringing people together is the most important thing."
He added that "watching this concert with people from all over the world made me and them feel good and connected and reminded me how powerful that universal culture is."
"Wouldn’t it be great if we had two candidates who could lead that culture and make smart leadership decisions, too?" he asked.
The idea was greeted with a mix of support and snark, along with accusations of wokeism and selfie wisecracks. Dalio responded, "No, I wasn't drunk (though obviously I need to work on my selfies), and yes, it was a joke, which is a half-truth."
Bridgewater CEO: 'everything has to get rewired'
"The half that’s true is that I think she can bring people together a lot better than either of the presidential candidates and bringing people together is one of the most important things a president should do," he said.
Dalio followed up his concerns about America's future in a recent interview with the Financial Times, in which he said that he sees about a 35% to 40% chance that the U.S. could end up in a civil war.
Related: Analyst reboots Palo Alto Networks stock price target ahead of earnings
"We are now on the brink,” Dalio said. But we “don’t yet know if we will cross over into much more turbulent times.”
Bridgewater Associates has seen its share of turbulent times.
Dalio, who once said, "He who lives by the crystal ball will eat shattered glass," established the fund in his New York City apartment in 1975, two years after receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School and 14 years before Taylor Swift was born.
Bridgewater Associates became the world's largest hedge fund in 2005. From 1991 to 2005, it lost money in only three calendar years, and never more than 4%.
The tide turned in 2020 when Bridgewater posted heavy losses related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Then, in December 2021, Bridgewater posted a 7.8% return, providing the firm with its best annual performance since 2018 at the close of the year.
Dalio stepped down as CEO in 2017 and as chairman in 2021 before transitioning into a CIO role in 2020. He exited the fund in October 2022. It currently manages about $112 billion.
CEO Nir Bar Dea vowed to overhaul the Westport, Connecticut-based fund, stating in an interview that “everything has to get rewired.”
“It's like taking a brain and a heart out of a human and then planting a new brain and a new heart,” he said.
According to a recent financial report, Bridgewater has been taking new stakes in some big tech names, boosting its holdings in an artificial intelligence titan, and scrapping some financial services companies.
Increasing position with AI giant
The report, known as a 13F filing, is submitted quarterly by institutional investment managers with control over $100 million in assets.
Related: Analysts overhaul Nvidia stock price targets ahead of earnings
Bridgewater Associates took new stakes in e-commerce and entertainment giant Amazon (AMZN) , with 1.05 million shares, semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) , with 679,000 shares, and healthcare technology Medtronic (MDT) , with 680,000 shares, during the first quarter.
Fund manager buys and sells:
- Cathie Wood buys $22 million of battered tech stock
- Fund manager of $100 million long/short mutual fund explains pair trade strategy
- Goldman Sachs revamps conviction list after stocks soar in Q1
Medtronic recently announced that it is adding new AI capabilities to its Reveal LINQ insertable cardiac monitor.
Meanwhile, Bridgewater increased its holdings in AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) , to 705,000 shares from 268,000, Apple (AAPL) , to 1.84 million from 1,110, and Microsoft (MSFT) to 580,000 from 198,000.
Last year, Dalio said in an interview with CNBC that they thought AI would be both "fabulous and dangerous.”
“The only issue is the people; how the technology is used is the risk,” he said. “It's a great power. It can be better than ourselves and become a partner and become some entity that can challenge us.”
Bridgewater parted company with CME Group (CME) , the world's largest futures exchange operator, which plans to launch bitcoin trading to expand its portfolio, according to the Financial Times.
The fund also exited its positions from Discover Financial Services (DFS) , which is being acquired by Capital One Financial (COF) for $35 billion, and semiconductor company Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR) .
Earlier this month, Truist raised the firm's price target on Monolithic Power to $799 from $789 per share and kept a buy rating on the stock.
Truist said the company delivered solid upside to first-quarter results and second-quarter guidance from ongoing strength in AI applications across a still broadening customer base.
Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024
