Don’t get me wrong I love Bloomberg. I would probably pick FT, WSJ and BBG as my favorite financial outlets but FT has a really annoying paywall and WSJ has one on most articles. Anyway I would say regardless BBG is my favorite outlet. They basically use BBG terminal sales to fund the best business news in the world – they get every scoop, have reporters at every contest, rarely need to correct stories, and also have some great in-depth features. Their hedge fund coverage is the best in the industry and I am always envious of their contacts.
That said this story with Bridgewater is weird. I mean first off Dalio has like $175B AUM even a $1B short bet is chump change for the shop. Second off its not Dalio he is too busy on a day to day basis (even if he was not on his book tour) to focus on a short equity bet. Most importantly i highly doubt this is a short equity bet. BW is not an equity shop they have like $10B equities out of $175B AUM and even those equities are usually macro bets and hedges.
Unless I am missing something that is not public nor known to my excellent sources, I think this is a sensational story gone out of hand. Bridgewater's algo made a bet or whatever and it included a short position in an Italian equity likely not focused on that stock. Heck they might have even sold by now (Id look but despite EU law some countries included Italy are still exempt and/or its impossible to find). However, EU law requires that a short above 0.5% of float must be reported - i have followed the European shorts for years - many times they reveal little and disappear in a day bc it was just a quick trade or whatever - I think that is particularly true here.
Anyway here is CNBC interview with CEO of the italian company. Its from Oct 13th but showed up in my alerts today and still as relevant (if it was to begin with).
Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina told CNBC that a multi-million bet against his company is doomed to fail.
Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio will lose his bet against Intesa Sanpaolo: CEO from CNBC.
