Quite a turning point: Ray Dalio has just reversed his long-standing stance on this key asset class.
For years, Ray Dalio has made his disdain for cash clear.
The founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, told anyone who would listen that cash was junk, a point he reiterated at the MarketWatch “Best New Ideas In Money” festival just two weeks ago. Dalio said cash was still a “junk investment,” though he may be showing signs of adjusting his long-held worldview, as he said the true utility of cash depends on how it compares to others.
Now he has changed his mind. “I don’t think cash is trash anymore,” Dalio said, in a late Monday tweet. “With existing interest rates and with the Fed shrinking its balance sheet, it’s now roughly neutral—neither a very good nor a very bad deal. In other words, the short-term interest rate is now about right.”
This is a view that the investment bank Morgan Stanley has been advocating for some time. Virtually risk-free, 6-month T-bill BX:TMUBMUSD06M
Tuesday morning yielded just under 4%. That compares with a 1.74% dividend yield on the S&P 500 SPX,
3.57% yield on 10-year Treasury BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
and 2% yield on the iShares Core US Aggregate Bond ETF AGG.
Granted, if the market goes higher, cash will be left behind. It is the trade-off between risk and return. Stocks rose on Monday and stock futures were stronger early Tuesday. Dalio usually has a worse reputation than, say, Jim Cramer, but perhaps throwing in the towel on cash is the sign that now is the time to get out of it and put money to work.
The markets
After Monday’s 765-point breakout for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
Futures on US stocks ES00
NQ00
pointed higher on the second day of the fourth quarter. The yield on the 10-year Treasury BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
fell to 3.57%. Bitcoin BTCUSD
was back over $20,000.
The uproar
The US economic calendar includes a number of Fed speakers, including Philip Jefferson’s first speech as governor. Job openings and factory orders data from August are due for release at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Is it a pivot? The Reserve Bank of Australia hiked 25 basis points less than expected, hurting the Australian dollar AUDUSD,
with financial markets now projecting the terminal rate to fall to 3.6% from 4.3% on Monday.
Warren Buffett’s likely successor, Greg Abel, made his largest investment in Berkshire Hathaway BRK
with a purchase of 68 million dollars. Abel had this summer sold his share of 870 million dollars to the company in a supply division he used to manage.
South Korea’s Naver KR:035420
agreed to pay $1.6 billion, or $17.90 per share in cash, for online fashion retailer Poshmark POSH.
Poshmark went public in 2021 at $42.
The best from the web
A utility has received billions in government green subsidies to cut down environmentally important forest.
Some retailers stick to “Made in Myanmar” after the coup.
Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker reimbursed a woman for an abortion, according to the Daily Beast, a claim the Republican ally of Donald Trump denies. Walker’s grown son, Christian, criticized his father for running for office.
Top tickers
Here were the most active stock market markers as of 6:00 a.m. Eastern.
|
Ticker |
Security name |
|
TSLA |
Tesla |
|
GME |
GameStop |
|
AMC |
AMC Entertainment |
|
AAPL |
apple |
|
NINE |
Nine |
|
MONKEY |
AMC Entertainment preferred |
|
BBBY |
Bed Bath & Beyond |
|
AMZN |
Amazon.com |
|
NVDA |
Nvidia |
|
AMD |
Advanced Micro Devices |
The diagram
Bitcoin BTCUSD
suddenly moves in the same direction as gold GC00.
Granted, it’s hardly a one-to-one relationship, but the correlation with gold is at its highest level in more than a year, according to analysis by digital asset provider Kaiko. The firm said that as the US dollar continues to strengthen, it has negatively impacted both asset classes.
Random reading
The Onion filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court, telling the nation’s highest court that it has a daily readership of 4.3 trillion, with manual labor camps all over the world.
A company that sells bottled water is valued at $700 million.
How this spray-on dress worn by model Bella Hadid was created.
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