alternative investments

Alternative investments are investments that have different return profiles from traditional investments, such as stock and bond investments.

In fact, these investments are often defined not by what they are, but by what they are not. That is, such an investment position is in something other than a long position in either equity or debt.

As an example of these markets, the Alternative Investment Management Association has handles things concerning hedge funds, managed futures, and managed currency funds.

Because these are non-traditional market segments, also the amount of research that is available is much less that for traditional markets such as stocks and bonds.

Also, to achieve return profiles that have little or negative correlation to traditional investment returns, many alternative investing vehicles, such as hedge funds, may use strategies that carry a very high degree of risk.

For these reasons, legislation and the funds themselves require a very high level of investor knowledge before committing funds to alternative investing resources.

Alternative Investments - Resources

As alternative investing instruments and investment markets have gained in popularity, so too the demand for information on these markets.

To supply to this demand there are now Chartered Alternative Investment Analysts (www.caia.org), for education, information and research on key issues affecting the industry around the world.

To find a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst to provide you with more information on the market opportunities, you can contact their assocation for details.


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