Billionaire Ray Dalio says investment portfolios should hold a certain percentage of Bitcoin (BTC) or gold as a hedge against the devaluation of the US dollar.
In a new interview with Master Investor podcast host Wilfred Frost, the co-chief investment officer of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates says that a proper diversification of an investment portfolio should include 15% of either gold or Bitcoin as US debt rises and geopolitical tensions increase.
“My own approach is, in my share of my portfolio, I have gold and I have some Bitcoin, but not much… I’m not going to describe my own exactly, but I’ll say the following: if you were neutral on everything, in other words, you didn’t have a point of view, and you were optimizing your portfolio for the best return-to-risk ratio, you would have about 15% of your money in gold or Bitcoin. I’m strongly preferring gold to Bitcoin. But that’s up to you.”
The risk-reward ratio, also known as the risk-return ratio, is used by investors to determine the potential gain for every dollar risked on an investment.
Dalio, who has warned that a 1970s-style period of stagflation may be coming, when there’s high inflation, high unemployment and low economic growth, says Bitcoin or gold may be an effective store of value when the US dollar loses value against other currencies, such as through money printing.
“The issue is the devaluation of money… If you have that issue and times when it occurred, which was in times of excess debt and geopolitical problems – just go back and study history, study the British pound, study the Dutch guilder, study this – you would find that in all such periods, also like the Seventies, [gold’s] an effective diversifier.
So if you had no view, you would have about 15% in that portfolio as a hedge against the other. I hope that that’s somewhat of a guide.”
