My guess would be for liquidity reasons. The large ETFs tend to have much better liquidity than individual stocks.
Basically he's trading baskets. Other than whatever edge that provides, what magic do you thing there is?
> Why would Bridgewater hold 87% of equity assets in simple ETFs? The ETF providers are very good at efficiently assembling and managing tracking portfolios. Some ETFs charge low single-digit bips now.
%% Another reason, Comagnum. 2017 is the year that the Random Walker Down Wall St[ Mr Malkiel] wrote on WSJ putting that much money in ETFs will not keep working, because to many people are doing it. [ paraphrase] So my reasoning of Bridgewater doing that, is they are better @ markets than a random walker .LOL. NO disrespect to mr malkiel,random walker; actually share some of his concerns + think the stock pickers may do better in 4th quarter than ETFs. Not a prediction ; wisdom is profitable to direct.
An excellent overview from the Deutsche Asset Management ETP team - Coming of Age: Institutions Find Novel and Innovative Uses for ETFs
%% And a pattern of NOT wanting to turn the managment of his company to anyone;a common pattern of founders