Billionaire Ray Dalio says sell bonds, buy gold, bitcoin as US debt crisis looms

(Aug 22): Billionaire Ray Dalio said investors should reduce their bond holdings and put as much as 15% of their money in gold to hedge against the risk of a US debt crisis that he warns could be just three years away.

In a LinkedIn post Friday, the Bridgewater Associates founder said investors should diversify across assets and countries with strong finances. Underweighting bonds and holding about 10% to 15% of a portfolio in gold and “a bit” of bitcoin could both reduce risk and boost returns, said Dalio, who has long warned about the dangers of mounting government debt.

His comments come at a time when long-term Treasury yields have risen to multiyear highs and Japan, America’s largest foreign creditor, has sold US bonds to support the yen. To stem the bond rout, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week announced plans to boost buybacks of long-dated debt, a surprise move that so far has provided little more than short-term support.

The latest developments are consistent with the debt-cycle framework Dalio outlined in his book How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle, he wrote. Rising debt-service costs eventually collide with insufficient investor demand, he said, forcing governments to accept higher interest rates or central banks to print money to buy debt, weakening currencies and fuelling inflation along the way.