Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, has dumped most of its Facebook holdings for Alibaba, Amazon, and Baidu, regulatory filings reveal.
Bridgewater bought approximately 84,629 shares (worth about $15.7 million) in Alibaba and 28,834 shares of Baidu (worth $7 million) during the second quarter. The two Chinese tech companies are part of the “FAANG+BAT” family, alongside Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Tencent. Although the fund started by Ray Dalio kept some stake in Mark Zuckerberg’s social media network, Bridgewater ditched 76% of its position. It still holds $9.37 million in the company.
As for Amazon, the giant hedge fund purchased 1,042 shares of the company, valued at $1.8 million.
With more than $150 billion in assets under management, Bridgewater’s investment in Alibaba and Baidu should not be a surprise, as founder Dalio has been highly vocal on trading with China for years. In September, Bridgewater launched a fund in China after it was allowed to trade in its local markets, an anomaly.
Facebook has been under fire in the past few months due to a large-scale data privacy scandal, seeing shares plummet as institutional investors such as the $223.8 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) have expressed their displeasure with the company.
Facebook has lost 18.2% of its value from its July high as of this writing.
Tags: Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu, Bridgewater Associates, Facebook, Ray Dalio, Stocks