Master of the Machine-Dalio

Master of the Machine, Ray Dalio in a must read interview with Barron’s.

It’s hard to imagine anyone navigating the rough seas of the past decade more ably than Ray Dalio, master and commander of money-management firm Bridgewater Associates, which oversees $120 billion for a roster of global clients that include foreign governments, pension funds and endowments.

The Westport, Conn.-based company is the world’s largest hedge-fund firm and one of just a handful of players to place more than one fund on Barron’s annual Top 100 Hedge Funds ranking. This year Bridgewater’s flagship Pure Alpha II and its All Weather @12% global macro funds both make the list, (see below for list.). Pure Alpha has tallied a three-year average return of 22.75% while All Weather gained 17.24% on that basis. BarclayHedge’s index of hedge funds returned 9.05% a year in that time; the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 14.11% annually.

The Bridgewater funds make strategic bets on commodities, currencies, bonds, and equities around the world based on analysis of valuations and macroeconomic trends..Dalio, who brings an unusually broad and deep perspective to investing, recently shared his latest views with us.

Barron’s: You’ve called the current phase of the U.S. deleveraging experience “beautiful.” Explain that, please.

Dalio: Deleveragings occur in a mechanical way that is important to understand. There are three ways to deleverage. We hear a lot about austerity. In other words, pull in your belt, spend less, and reduce debt. But austerity causes less spending and, because when you spend less, somebody earns less, it causes the contraction to feed on itself. Austerity causes more problems. It is deflationary and it is negative for growth.

Restructuring the debt means creditors get paid less or get paid over a longer time frame or at a lower interest rate; somehow a contract is broken in a way that reduces debt. But debt restructurings also are deflationary and negative for growth. One man’s debts are another man’s assets, and when debts are written down to relieve the debtor of the burden, it has a negative effect on wealth. That causes credit to decline.

Printing money typically happens when interest rates are close to zero, because you can’t lower interest rates any more. Central banks create money, essentially, and buy the assets that put money in the system for a quantitative easing or debt monetization. Unlike the first two options, this is an inflationary action and stimulative to the economy.

Ful article here.