Bridgewater Associates raising new capital; fund has returned an average 12% annually since 1991

Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge-fund manager, is raising new money for its flagship Pure Alpha fund for the first time since 2009. The firm is looking for new investors to bring the fund back to its optimal size, as the $70 billion Pure Alpha fund posts a 9% loss so far for this year, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Energy investments make up a significant portion of the Bridgewater’s portfolio, according to information from Bloomberg. Oil, gas and coal are the third-largest sector in Bridgewater’s portfolio after materials and “other.” The funds five largest energy investments include Noble Energy (ticker: NBL, 2.25 million shares), Petrobras (ticker: PBR, 1.8 million shares), Ensco (ticker: ESV, 1.32 million shares), Suncor (ticker: SU, 0.8 million shares), and Canadian Natural Resources (ticker: CNQ, 0.5 million shares).

Pure Alpha uses a macro investment strategy to bet on and against world markets. The fund, which hasn’t had a losing performance in the past 15 years, has lost about 9% in 2016 thus far (through August). It has.

Bridgewater’s smaller All Weather fund, which employs a risk-parity strategy based on passive automated programs, returned 13% through the end of August. The firm’s Optimal Portfolio, which mixes the All Weather and Pure Alpha strategies, continued to take investments at the start of 2016. Bridgewater as a firm took in about $11 billion last year.


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