Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater cuts European short bet to under $1 billion

Bridgewater Associates, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, has seemingly walked away from its big short bet against Europe.

The short position the fund held initially was slashed down to $845 million from a staggering $10.5 billion, as reported by Bloomberg on August 17. 

The initial short position in June included roughly 50 European companies, with the more prominent being the pharma giant Bayer (ETR: BAYN), financial services company Allianz (ETR: ALV), and the Spanish bank Santander (BME: SAN), along with Deutsche Borse, Infineon Technologies, Munich Reinsurance, Air Liquide, ING Groep, BBVA, and BASF.

Consequently, the only short positions left in the portfolio are against Banco Santander, Air Liquide, and ING Groep. Meanwhile, the Stoxx Europe 600 index has dropped 10.44% year-to-date (YTD).

Breakout Point

Breakout Point GmbH, which follows meme stocks and uncovers significant short positions, used public disclosures to get the exact positions Bridgewater held against European equities. 

According to EU law, funds have to disclose bets over 0.5% short interest; therefore, it is not possible to know exactly what the fund has in short position under this threshold. 

Since no statement was made by Dalio or his fund regarding the unwinding of this short bet, it remains unclear what the real reason is behind staying bearish on only three out of initially 50 companies. 

Finally, the initial short bet could have been brought on by the war in Ukraine and issues regarding supply chains and energy disruption. Only time will tell whether Dalio now sees a change in these macro trends and how the stocks will fare. 

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