The reigning champ of artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, Nvidia, just released its fiscal third-quarter earnings, and tech investors everywhere breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the positive results; the chipmaker handily beat consensus estimates for revenue and earnings per share (EPS). On the call, its executive team painted a rosy picture of the next few quarters, insisting demand for its newest chips is living up to the hype.

Before Nvidia dropped its Q3 report, however, Ray Dalio and his firm, Bridgewater Associates, let go of 1.8 million shares of the company worth about $260 million. At the same time, he upped his position in another AI player. Why?

Bridgewater's position

Bridgewater is the largest hedge fund in the world and one of the most successful. At its helm, Dalio pioneered new investment strategies and approaches to risk management that earned him a glowing reputation -- and a whole lot of money. His was famously one of the few funds prepared for the 2008 crash; in a year that saw the S&P 500 lose 36.6%, Bridgewater was up 9.5%. I should note, that while this is certainly impressive, Bridgewater returned just 4% when the market bounced back in 2009, gaining 26.5%.

To be sure, Dalio has some street cred, so when his fund makes big moves it's not a bad idea to pay attention to them. Luckily for investors, funds have to report trades to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC and these reports are made public. During Q3, Bridgewater cut its Nvidia stake from 6.6 million shares to 4.8 million.

At the same time, the fund more than doubled its stake in Apple (AAPL -1.32%) from 469,000 shares to 1 million.

Apple's iPhone sales leave something to be desired

The sale of Nvidia shares isn't surprising given the incredible run the stock has experienced. Active funds like Bridgewater are constantly moving money from one investment to another looking for "alpha" -- gains above a market benchmark. While that's not usually a great strategy for retail investors -- there is plenty of evidence that the vast majority of investors who think they're smarter than the market aren't -- plenty of hedge fund managers find success this way.

Dalio and his firm kept the majority of their Nvidia stake, so the sale is unlikely to stem from a loss of faith. Rather, Bridgewater is locking in a portion of the profits it made and looking for new opportunities elsewhere.

Apple is an interesting choice. The recent weak sales of its newest iPhone 16 are concerning. Though Apple has its hand in many businesses, it lives and dies on its iPhone sales, and its Apple Intelligence rollout was supposed to help spur sales by encouraging new device upgrades from existing customers. It's not clear it's working, especially in China, a critical market for the company.

Still, Dalio obviously sees an opportunity. Apple is delivering consistent growth, even if it's more modest than some of its tech peers. More importantly, however, Apple has proven time and again that it can innovate at critical times. Its soft iPhone sales have meant the stock hasn't kept pace with much of the AI market. If Apple can right the sales ship, there could be significant upside from where it's trading today.

Looking even further down the road, Apple has a unique place in the market in terms of its physical reach: the company's phones are in the pockets of more than 150 million people in the U.S. alone. I think that makes it uniquely suited to deliver truly revolutionary AI, and while Apple Intelligence in its current form may not be far from revolutionary, in time, it just might be.