Bridgewater Ditches Facebook for Alibaba, Baidu, and Amazon
The world’s largest hedge fund pares stake in the social media juggernaut by 76% while refocusing its tech exposure.
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.