Alternative investments

That simple wait-and-see game plan we adopted when we believed recovery was just around the corner? Not cutting it anymore -- if it ever did. It's time for new strategies to win in the New Normal. Here's a rundown of ideas that once worked to which it's time to say goodbye, and the current wisdom for replacing them.

The financial crisis exposed an industry that couldn't manage its own portfolios, much less provide worthwhile advice to clients. Yet 85% of investors continue to invest with brokers. Here are 10 reasons why that's a mistake.

Oil demand is still soft following the recession, but prices remain high. Investors' use of oil as an alternative investment and a hedge against a decline in the dollar play an important role.

After a rough 2009 -- even with the recovery in public capital markets -- investors in private equity funds remained cautious with their cash, a trend that appears likely to continue.

Apparently undeterred by the second-most significant crash in the history of the U.S. stock market, the majority of institutional investors and financial advisors plan to increase their use of alternative investments despite their poor performance during last year's financial meltdown. A recent...

Ask any investor, and he'll tell you the best place to enter the market is at the bottom. Buy low and sell high, right? The institutional crowd knows this lesson best, and after a rocky year in traditional financial markets, many are now drawn to what seems to be the market bottom for a more...

Despite tumultuous global financial market conditions, private equity investments in the clean technology ("cleantech") space showed resilience last year. Investors are reconsidering their overall exposures to private equity -- and this includes cleantech -- but they are still operating in the...

Did you notice that power shift in Washington? When your party has a sizable majority in the House, almost sixty votes in the Senate, and a popular president whose electoral base is expanding, that tends to translate to political capital. If they haven't noticed it yet, the alternative investment...