• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Exclusive

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

An hour in the Oval Office with President Trump Fortune Editor-in-Chief: Alyson Shontell sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office for an hour. Tariffs, Intel, AI, Boeing, Iran—and the question every CEO eventually has to answer: who's next?

FinanceHedge Funds

Ray Dalio’s McDonald’s-Inspired Hedge Fund Is Crushing His Flagship Fund

By
Jen Wieczner
Jen Wieczner
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Jen Wieczner
Jen Wieczner
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 7, 2016, 4:30 PM ET
World Economic Forum - 2016
Photograph by David A.Grogan — CNBC/NBCU/Getty Images

Bridgewater Associates’ world’s largest hedge fund, run by Ray Dalio, is not only underperforming the market this year, but it’s lagging way behind another Bridgewater fund that basically runs itself.

Founded by Dalio in 1975, Bridgewater Associates is the biggest hedge fund firm on the planet with more than $150 billion in assets under management, and also runs the two largest individual hedge funds in the world, Pure Alpha and All Weather. The biggest, Bridgewater’s Pure Alpha, is also its most famous: With more than $62 billion in assets, Pure Alpha had made investors richer than any other hedge fund in history, reaping $45 billion in returns between its inception and the end of 2015, according to Bloomberg. This year, though, the fund has fallen 12% in the six months of the year—its worst first-half performance in more than 20 years, The Wall Street Journal reported. (It may also have lost additional money to investor withdrawals, as the fund’s assets fell even more, down 25% from the $82.3 billion in the fund at the end of last year.)

Meanwhile, Bridgewater’s All Weather fund is crushing it. Younger and once much smaller than Pure Alpha, All Weather now has more than $60.7 billion in assets, according to Preqin. The fund returned 10% in the first half of this year, more than double the 4% return of the S&P 500. The kicker? All Weather is a passive strategy similar to the way index funds and ETFs do not have active managers.

Rather than chase home runs like the actively managed Pure Alpha portfolio, All Weather is designed to “do reasonably well” no matter what happens in the market or the economy: It holds stocks, bonds, commodities, and several types of debt, balancing the allocations so that the risk is split evenly between the different types of assets, and so that the fund should make money whether the economy grows or contracts, or whether inflation rises or falls.

Interestingly, Dalio got the idea for the All Weather strategy from McDonald’s (MCD) after helping the company hedge its ingredient costs for Chicken McNuggets using similar principles. While other investors “might be surprised by inflation shifts or a growth bust,” Bridgewater writes in a research paper on its website, “All Weather would chug along, providing attractive, relatively stable returns.” That strategy, dubbed “risk parity,” is especially popular with pension funds.

It hasn’t always worked, of course. All Weather fell nearly 4% in 2013 during a banner year in which the overall stock market returned almost 30%, Fortune reported at the time.

Indeed, All Weather’s recent outperformance reverses the usual dynamic between the two funds. Pure Alpha has averaged annual returns of 13% since its inception, while All Weather has lagged with a 7.7% average return each year, according to CNBC. Last year, Pure Alpha was up 4.7%, while All Weather was down 7% (and the S&P 500 was essentially flat).

This year investors have turned away from high-flying momentum stocks like Netflix (NFLX) that powered much of the market’s returns in 2015, and instead bought defensive assets such as gold, dividend stocks, and “boring government bonds” as they search for yield and safety amid Brexit fears and other economic uncertainty. That trend has likely been good for the All Weather fund, with its high allocations towards bonds and other typically lower-risk assets. If interest rates were to rise however, as they eventually will, All Weather’s leveraged bond portfolio probably won’t do as well.

In any case, when you run the two biggest hedge funds in the world, you can probably still “chug along” just fine—even if the funds’ returns end up canceling each other out this year.

About the Author
By Jen Wieczner
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Finance

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Finance

joel
Commentarysaas
The SaaSpocalypse isn’t killing software. It’s exposing where software value really lives
By Joel HronMay 19, 2026
46 minutes ago
College graduates sitting at commencement yell.
AIEducation
College students are booing commencement speakers celebrating AI, but the wave of hate hasn’t stopped them from using it to cheat on their exams
By Sasha RogelbergMay 19, 2026
2 hours ago
Environmental advocates and progressive lawmakers hold a rally in support of legislation that would put a moratorium on new data centers in the state on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y.
AIData centers
Americans’ AI hate wave might just be gathering steam: Data centers could hike power costs in some states over 50% by 2030
By Tristan BoveMay 19, 2026
3 hours ago
Mortgage rates today, May 19, 2026
Personal Financemortgages
Mortgage rates today, May 19, 2026
By Glen Luke FlanaganMay 19, 2026
3 hours ago
Current refi mortgage rates report for May 19, 2026
Personal Financemortgage rates
Current refi mortgage rates report for May 19, 2026
By Glen Luke FlanaganMay 19, 2026
3 hours ago
Current ARM mortgage rates report for May 19, 2026
Personal FinanceReal Estate
Current ARM mortgage rates report for May 19, 2026
By Glen Luke FlanaganMay 19, 2026
3 hours ago

Most Popular

The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
Politics
The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
By Jake AngeloMay 12, 2026
7 days ago
While Trump insisted the Iran war would end ‘soon,’ an account in his name was buying millions in oil, defense and gold
Economy
While Trump insisted the Iran war would end ‘soon,’ an account in his name was buying millions in oil, defense and gold
By Eva RoytburgMay 18, 2026
15 hours ago
Current price of oil as of May 18, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 18, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 18, 2026
21 hours ago
EXCLUSIVE: An hour in the Oval Office with the CEO-in-Chief, President Trump
Politics
EXCLUSIVE: An hour in the Oval Office with the CEO-in-Chief, President Trump
By Alyson ShontellMay 18, 2026
1 day ago
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
AI
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
By Jake AngeloMay 16, 2026
3 days ago
Spirit Airlines apologizes to all the Americans who can't afford any summer vacation flights as it shuts down
Travel & Leisure
Spirit Airlines apologizes to all the Americans who can't afford any summer vacation flights as it shuts down
By Rio Yamat and The Associated PressMay 18, 2026
21 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.