Bridgewater

Attention Would-Be Thieves: Bridgewater Associates Take Their Buns Of Steel Tapes Very Seriously

By Bess Levin

Last Friday afternoon, while many a financial services employee was dealing with the fallout of receiving a bonus they did not believe to be commensurate with the work they put in for 2011, Bridgewater was dealing with a far weightier issue. The hedge fund had a thief in its ranks and said thief’s jig was up. Continue reading »

  • 08 Sep 2011 at 10:11 AM

Ray Dalio: Preacha Tellin’ The Truth And It Hurts!

By Bess Levin

The truth, according to Bridgewater, being: 1) the world is going to hell in a handbasket and 2) 2011 will be the Year of the Hyena. Continue reading »

  • 03 Aug 2011 at 8:42 AM

Dartmouth Undergrad Has A Bone To Pick With Ray Dalio, ‘Faceless Hedge Funds,’ The Dartmouth Board, And Peers Who Flock To Wall Street To ‘Perpetuate Class-Based Systems Of Power And Dominance’

By Bess Levin

At a party in New Hampshire last week, one Dartmouth undergrad relayed a story to another about Bridgewater Associates. Apparently the former had chosen to abstain from the annual recruiting session that takes place over the summer for rising juniors and as a firm committed to probing the depths of any situation until they find the truth, Bridgewater wanted to know more. The hedge fund offered to pay the coed “$100 to write a statement explaining why she didn’t participate,” she told her friend, a proposition that sickened him.

The sheer arrogance and senselessness of this anecdote made me sick to my stomach, partly because, as planned, the exercise made her second guess her choice. But I had to admit there was a certain conceited logic to it — if this company can pay her $100 just to explain why she did not want to work for them, it’s easy to imagine how much cash she could rake in if she decided to pursue the job.

The exercise also got him thinking.

After I was done vomiting in my mouth, thinking of all the people who desperately need that hundred dollars, I began to think about the depth to which the recruiting culture has permeated our College. It has siphoned off some of our great minds into a dead-end field that sanitizes the intellect, offers almost nothing to human society, and conditions people to act in ways that are decidedly inhuman.

He continued. Continue reading »

  • 07 Jul 2008 at 7:49 AM

Credit Crisis Math: Report Sees $1.5 Trillion In Losses

By Bess Levin

Over the weekend word began to leak out about a report from Europe predicting losses at financial companies would be twice as large as many had predicted and far larger than have been declared by banks and securities firms so far. In April the IMF had estimated that world wide losses from mortgages and other debt would amount to $1 trillion. The new report, which turns out to have been based on a confidential memorandum from Bridgewater Associates, put that losses at half again as high, $1.5 trillion. To put this in perspective, that would mean that we’re only about one-third of the way down.
The German language newspaper SonntagsZeitung said there will probably be a financial “avalanche” of distresses debt securities. It warned that financial institutions may not be able to raise enough capital to cover the losses. In other words, we should be ready to see at least one more bank or brokerage collapse. At least one.
Brisante Studie: Die Bankenkrise wird noch viel schlimmer [SonntagsZeitung]
Banking Crisis May Cause $1.6 Trillion in Losses, Sonntags Says [Bloomberg]