I Hate to Say It, But I Told You So

Abstract

Based on a Morningstar poll (912 responses; poll taken November 10, 2009), “More Advisors Are Reporting that 76–100% of their Client Groups are Using Alternative Investments than Last Year,”¹ both finance experts and investors clearly see the merits of diversifying with alternative investments. In Smart Money’s “Own More ‘Alternatives,’” “The financial crisis did more than just shred the mystique of the buy-and-hold era; it also left many investors skeptical of the idea that stocks, bonds and cash were enough to see them through to the finish line. After all, stocks and bonds both took huge tumbles simultaneously, and low interest rates during the recovery made most people’s cash holdings about as profitable as a pet rock. Those trends are fueling demand for a wider array of assets—from long-short funds, which can improve their returns by betting against stocks, to commodities, which tend to rise when stocks fall.”²