Zinger Key Points
- Bridgewater shifts focus to consumer, healthcare, and IT sectors in latest portfolio.
- Ray Dalio's firm increases stakes in major consumer brands amid inflation changes.
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A significant portion of the portfolio of the hedge fund established by billionaire Ray Dalio is comprised of consumer stocks.
As of the latest 13F report from Bridgewater Associates for the third quarter, 14.59% of the hedge fund’s portfolio was invested in consumer discretionary stocks, and another 26.04% invested into consumer staples stocks. That’s 40.63% of the entire hedge fund holdings.
Per Bridgewater Associates’ latest 13F filing, updated for Q3 2023, the firm adjusted its portfolio in favor of the consumer staples, discretionary, healthcare and IT sectors – a trend that can be observed to have begun in Q3 2020. Financials dominated the Bridgewater Associates’ portfolio until then.
| Rank | Ticker | Security | Sector | % of Portfolio | Prev. % of Port. | % Change |
| 1 | IEMG | iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF | Finance | 5.52% | 5.46% | 6.98% |
| 2 | IVV | iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | Finance | 5.31% | 5.54% | 1.55% |
| 3 | PG | Proctor And Gamble | Consumer Staples | 4.23% | 4.33% | 4.00% |
| 4 | KO | Coca-Cola | Consumer Staples | 3.04% | 3.05% | 9.51% |
| 5 | COST | Costco | Consumer Staples | 2.83% | 2.69% | 2.53% |
| 6 | PEP | Pepsico | Consumer Staples | 2.74% | 2.94% | 4.43% |
| 7 | WMT | Walmart | Consumer Staples | 2.60% | 2.49% | 5.04% |
| 8 | SPY | SPDR S&P 500 ETF | Finance | 2.57% | 2.84% | -3.84% |
| 9 | JNJ | Johnson & Johnson | Healthcare | 2.56% | 3.25% | -14.37% |
| 10 | MCD | McDonald’s | Consumer Discretionary | 2.36% | 2.61% | 4.44% |
| 11 | PDD | Pinduoduo | Consumer Discretionary | 1.61% | 1.17% | -0.83% |
| 12 | VWO | Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF | Finance | 1.42% | 1.97% | -23.91% |
| 13 | SBUX | Starbucks | Consumer Discretionary | 1.40% | 1.66% | -6.89% |
| 14 | GOOGL | Alphabet/Google | Communications | 1.25% | 1.45% | -19.44% |
| 15 | CVS | CVS Health | Consumer Staples | 1.22% | 1.15% | 7.58% |
Above are Bridgewater Associates’ top 15 holdings as of Q3 2023. It is clear how heavily bent the portfolio is towards the consumer sector.
The hedge fund has increased its stake in consumer stocks such as Procter & Gamble Co PG, Coca-Cola Co KO, Costco Wholesale Corp COST, PepsiCo Inc PEP, Walmart Inc WMT, McDonald’s Corp MCD and CVS Health Corp CVS.
Bridgewater Associates did shed some of its holdings in consumer stocks PDD Holdings Inc PDD and Starbucks Corp SBUX. Meanwhile, healthcare sector stock, Johnson & Johnson JNJ, also saw some offloading from the hedge fund’s portfolio.
The consumer sector-heavy portfolio comes at a time when inflation (as measured by changes in the Consumer Price Index) in the U.S. came in at 3.2% In October, down from September’s 3.7%.
Over the past few years, 74-year-old Dalio has gradually scaled back his formal role at the firm. He resigned as CEO in 2017 and stepped down as Co-CIO last October to begin retirement. However, he remains involved in a more informal capacity as a CIO mentor, offering advice and meeting with investors.
Photo: Web Summit on Flickr
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