Ray Dalio's top fund is having a rough year - and now one of Asia's biggest lenders is telling clients to pull their money out

• Ray Dalio, who runs the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, is losing investors in Asia after a major bank advised its clients to pull their money from its top fund, Bloomberg reported.
• Bridgewater's top fund, Pure Alpha, fell 6% through August 23, while other similar funds pared gains.
• The fund's underperformance and Dalio's public comments were main reasons that the bank made the recommendation to clients.
• Read more on Business Insider.

Ray Dalio, the leader of Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge fund in the world, is losing clients after a rough year.

His top fund, Pure Alpha, has slumped even as the stock market has soared. The fund lost 6% this year through August 23, Bloomberg reported, driven by bearish bets on global interest rates. Pure Alpha has also trailed other macro competitors, which gained about 4.7% this year through July, according to Bloomberg.

Now, some of Asia's wealthiest people are pulling money out of the fund, Bloomberg reported.

That's because UOB Private Bank, a large Singapore-based bank, recommended that clients pull their money out of the Bridgewater fund, Chief Investment Officer Neo Teng Hwee told Bloomberg.

The recommendation came mid-year, as Bridgewater had "not really done well for us," Neo told Bloomberg. "Previously we used to like it and it was high conviction, but now we've removed them from high conviction," he said.

Other than the firm's weak performance, the bank considered Dalio's public comments next to his firm's investment decisions. Those didn't always line up, which was worrying, Neo told Bloomberg, although this occurs in part because the firm has different teams that run different investments.

In November, Dalio wrote in a LinkedIn post that the "world has gone bad and the system is broken." In October, he said that the global economy is in a "great sag" and that monetary policy might prove ineffective to correct it. About a month earlier, he also likened the current political climate and economy to 1937 and said he expects a downturn in roughly two years.