When you think of investing, a few things usually come to mind: stocks, bonds and, at times, your mattress. But a wide universe of potential investments exists. Tons of ways to lose your money out there. The more unusual investment types are generally categorized as alternative assets.
Some of these fall into the general Wall Street sphere (the round kind), though they remain exotic for run-of-the-mill investors. Think: hedge funds, art work, rare coins, private equity, venture capital funds and/or just fancy bundles of derivatives. Other types of alternative assets might seem more like hobbies than investments. We're thinking of things like collecting rare wine or ancient Chinese erotic thimbles.
The issue with alternative assets is that they often require some specialized knowledge, a minimum amount of wealth and income, and a minimum standard of demonstrated financial expertise. They can be Century Investments (the kind that can go down 100% so the thought is that the less sophisticated investors who can't afford to lose everything should be made aware or protected from this peril.) Also, the markets tend to be far less liquid, meaning that it often takes a long time to get back your cash after you've bought all those sexy thimbles.
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Finance: What is a Private Investment Co...3 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is a private investment company Shh we are hunting [Elmer Fudd appears from a bush]
profits okay people it's private yes private private means not subject to
the onerous rules of public investing and all that regulation that is when [Definition of a private investment company]
it's only wealthy big boys and girls putting in their dough the presumption [Wealthy people giving money to the market]
is that they have their own lawyers their own risk tolerances their own Ivy
League education and they can figure out the deal on their very own they don't
need mama government training wheels the way the public does in public offerings [The public riding a bike as the stabilisers are taken off]
with publicly traded securities and so on like private wealthy educated
investors get treated differently than Jo farmer who you know just graduated [Guy talking as Elmer Fudd keeps appearing in the background]
high school so who all does this apply to like what's a private investor what
investment vehicles are involved well hedge funds you know those go to private
wealthy investors private equity funds same deal and venture capital funds same
deal why because they go bankrupt all the time you can lose all your money in [Money going down the toilet]
these things all the time and it happens and Joe Q public needs to be protected
from that and there's good and bad because in these funds also you can make [The government saves the public from a fire breathing dragon]
like a hundred times your money if you happen to win the one lottery ticket [Guy next to pile of money from Amazon stock]
that goes up a whole lot and that's what people focus on when they sell them so
Joe Q public at least according to government is to be protected from such
a volatility and there's other investment vehicles beyond these three
that get private attention away from the public but they have vehicles we can't [Elmer Fudd whispering]
tell you about
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