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Diversifying across roughly 15 good, uncorrelated return streams cuts portfolio risk by about 80% without giving up return, multiplying your return-to-risk ratio by around five times.

Dalio explains his 'Holy Grail of investing': combining roughly 15 uncorrelated return streams can cut portfolio risk by ~80% while preserving returns, sharply improving the return-to-risk ratio. ✦ AI generated

Ray Dalio · My First Million · 2026-07-17 · original ↗

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How did you come up with 15?

you can get out to 15, you can get down to about reduce about 80% of your risk without reducing your return. That means that you increase your return to risk ratio by something like a factor of five. Okay? In other words, wow. So that means you can get the upside without having the downside.

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3:27you can get out to 15, you can get down to about reduce about 80% of your risk without reducing your return. That means that you increase your return to risk ratio by something like a factor of five. Okay? In other words, wow. So that means you can get the upside without having the downside. Okay? And then humility, you know, I wanted people to kick the [ __ ] out of whatever I thought,

3:58you know, to try to do that and then have that. And that change in that approach was the basis of Bridgewater going from, you know, be having to borrow $4,000 from my dad to the largest hedge fund, most successful hedge fund in the world. >> If we wanted to be better investors, what do you think the most common mistake smart guys can make when it comes to investing? They don't have a

4:21game plan. >> So, what's a good game plan look like? How do you know if you have a good game plan? >> Well, the way that I did it was um um every time I would make a decision, but this is the building of all principles I did, but particularly in the markets, every time I would be make a decision, I would go back and study if I made that

4:39decision in these circumstances, how would it have worked in the past? And I would know the track record of that decision. And it that would give me also greater understanding of how things work. And so then I would have a decision rule and then I would program it into the market into the computer and when this thing come along then I started to realize okay now I've got

5:05criteria. So rather than just the one that I would see, I would say in the computer dump in all of them and where do they exist anywhere in the world and what what will so give me give me one good decision rule that wherever it happens in the r world world that I have a track record of knowing how those work and wherever it is in the world you

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