65 Facts About Ray Dalio

Raymond Thomas Dalio was born on August 8,1949 and is an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager, who has served as co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, since 1985.

Ray Dalio was born in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City's Queens borough.

Ray Dalio is the son of a jazz musician, Marino Dallolio, who "played the clarinet and saxophone at Manhattan jazz clubs such as the Copacabana," and Ann, a homemaker.

Ray Dalio caddied for many Wall Street professionals during his time there, including Wall Street veteran George Leib.

Ray Dalio began investing at age 12, when he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company.

Ray Dalio found school repetitive and monotonous and saw no practical applications for the skills he was learning.

Ray Dalio continued to buy and sell stocks in college, but became attracted to something new: commodity futures.

Commodity futures had low borrowing requirements at the time, and Ray Dalio knew he could profit more handsomely than with simple stocks.

Ray Dalio took a job as a clerk on the New York Stock Exchange.

Ray Dalio moved to Wilton, Connecticut, where he lived and traded out of a converted barn.

Ray Dalio then worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and traded commodity futures.

At the firm, Ray Dalio's job was to advise cattle ranchers, grain producers, and other farmers on how to hedge risks, primarily with futures.

Ray Dalio longed for the more freedom-based lifestyle of college.

The main areas in which Ray Dalio advised were currencies and interest rates.

Ray Dalio began publishing a paid subscription research report, Daily Observations, in which it analyzed global market trends.

Ray Dalio started to become well-known outside of Wall Street after turning a profit from the 1987 stock market crash.

In 1996, Ray Dalio launched All Weather, a fund that pioneered a steady, low-risk strategy that later became known as risk parity.

In 2007, Bridgewater suggested there might be a global financial crisis, and in 2008 Ray Dalio published "How the Economic Machine Works: A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now", an essay assessing the potential of various economies by various criteria.

Ray Dalio did this by anticipating that the Federal Reserve would be forced to print a lot of money to revive the economy.

Ray Dalio went long on Treasury bonds, shorted the dollar, and bought gold and other commodities.

In 2011, Ray Dalio self-published a 123-page volume, Principles, that outlines his philosophy of investment and corporate management.

Ray Dalio has controlled Bridgewater Associates alongside co-chief investment officers Bob Prince and Greg Jensen since its inception.

Ray Dalio said the reason for this was the continued sustainability and profit-sharing of the company.

Ray Dalio was co-CEO of Bridgewater for 10 months before announcing in March 2017 that he would step down as part of a company-wide shakeup by April 15.

Ray Dalio had been in a seven-year management and equity transition to find a replacement.

In reference to the personality that led him to investment success, Ray Dalio has said that he considers himself a "hyperrealist", and that he is motivated to understand the mechanisms that dictate how the world actually functions, without adding in abstract value judgments.

Ray Dalio uses multiple strategies with Bridgewater Associates, allocating capital to each as he sees fit.

Ray Dalio uses "quantitative" investment methods to identify new investments while avoiding unrealistic historical models.

Ray Dalio's goal is to structure portfolios with uncorrelated investment returns based on risk allocations rather than asset allocations.

Ray Dalio popularized the risk parity approach, which he uses for risk management and diversification within Bridgewater Associates.

Ray Dalio employs an investment strategy that blends conventional diversification with "wagers on or against markets around the world" according to Bloomberg.

Ray Dalio's strategy uses an optimal risk target level as its basis for investing.

Ray Dalio began using the term "d-process" in February 2009 to describe the deleveraging and deflationary process of the subprime mortgage industry as distinct from a recession, and subsequently incorporated the term into his investment philosophy.

Ray Dalio said that the odds of a low-wage earner moving to a higher level of wealth were decreasing over time and that this demonstrated Americans' lower economic and social mobility.

Ray Dalio warned that inequality was becoming more entrenched and rising fast.

Ray Dalio said that a hypothetical improved capitalism would have to be good at creating a bigger pie and redistributing it as well.

In October 2020, Ray Dalio cautioned people to not be blind to China's rise, arguing that it had continued to emerge as a global superpower.

Ray Dalio claimed that China had succeeded in "exceptional ways", including high economic performance in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the lowest COVID-19 case rates, and being the center of half of all listed initial public offerings globally.

Ray Dalio asserted that when he visited China in 1984, high-ranking officials would marvel at basic technology such as calculators, calling them "miracle devices".

Ray Dalio argued that China was now on a par with the US in advanced technologies and would probably take the lead in the next five years.

Ray Dalio discussed the growing population of well-educated citizens, as well as China's continued growth in the absorption and processing of data, which many headlines have called "the new oil".

Ray Dalio said that the Chinese economy's fundamentals were strong and its assets relatively attractively priced.

Ray Dalio maintained that China's stocks and bonds were currently underweighted in terms of the global portfolio, and that the US was bloated.

Ray Dalio downplayed and denied Chinese human rights violations, instead likening the Chinese government to a "strict parent".

Ray Dalio has suffered from Barrett's esophagus, a form of gastroesophageal reflux disease, a pre-malignant condition that if not treated properly can lead to cancer.

In 2011, Ray Dalio was the subject of John Cassidy's New Yorker article "Mastering the Machine".

Ray Dalio created the Dalio Foundation, which serves as his personal philanthropic vehicle.

In 2013, Ray Dalio contributed another $400 million to the foundation, which increased its assets to about $842 million.

The Ray Dalio Foundation has contributed to the National Philanthropic Trust, to polio eradication projects.

In February 2020, the Ray Dalio Foundation donated $10 million to support China's coronavirus recovery efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, Ray Dalio pledged $100 million to Connecticut public schools.

Ray Dalio has backed the Volcker Alliance, the public policy group headed by former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker.

Ray Dalio is an avid outdoorsman, and enjoys both hunting and fishing.

Ray Dalio has hunted cape buffalo, grouse, elk, and warthog.

Ray Dalio is especially fond of bow-hunting, which is his weapon of choice when hunting.

Ray Dalio's stated aim for the book was to explain how the economic machine works, as he saw many people did not understand.

Ray Dalio explains the government "prints" money and uses it to combat some of the consequences of contracting credit.

Ray Dalio argues that if the money printing occurs on a large enough level, it devalues the currency, decreases interest rates and drives investors from financial assets to inflation hedge assets.

Ray Dalio originally published a shorter version of Principles online in 2011, which received over three million downloads.

Ray Dalio has said that he could continue improving his returns by solidifying recurring lessons into "principles".

Ray Dalio says that deflationary debt rotations generally happen when the majority of debt is denominated in a country's own currency.

Ray Dalio believes it is possible for legislators to handle these scenarios relatively well, but even a good end result will be extremely costly to some people.

Ray Dalio says that the legislators must choose the beneficiaries and who suffers.

In 2012, Ray Dalio received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, during the International Achievement Summit in Washington, DC CNBC listed Principles among the 13 Best Business Books of 2017.

Ray Dalio was called the "Steve Jobs of Investing" by aiCIO Magazine and Wired Magazine.