By most measures, 2022 was a challenging year for investors.

Stocks were down, bonds were down, interest rates spiked, and inflation remained high.

The only safe haven was either cash under the mattress or what some refer to as alternative investments.

Alternative investments or alts refer to pretty much everything except the three traditional

asset classes, those being stocks, bonds, and cash. So asset classes like private equity, venture

capital, hedge funds, managed futures, art, and commodities. Real estate, especially private,

non-traded real estate, is also often thrown into the alternative investment

bucket. Now, historically, alternative investments have been reserved for the ultra wealthy or

institutional clients, along with needing to prove that you were an accredited investor, you also

needed to know the right people and hang in the right circles in order to be able to participate

in the quote, best investments. On top in order to be able to participate in the, quote,

best investments. On top of that, you had to trust that the managers of those investments were going

to be good stewards of your money because alternative investments are often ill-liquid and less

regulated than traditional publicly traded asset classes. And while much of the alternative

investment world

still operates this way, many of these strategies have now found their way to mom and pop

investors through publicly traded mutual funds and exchange traded funds. Alternatives are often

advertised and marketed as uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. In other words, when stocks and bonds

zig alternatives are supposed to zag. They're also sometimes touted as lower risk investments

that have similar long-term returns to the riskier publicly traded securities. Given how these

investment solutions are often positioned, when traditional asset classes like

stocks and bonds suffer, like we saw last year, alternative investments typically receive

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