Alternative Investments

Course Overview

Investors are increasingly looking for "alternative" ideas beyond the conventional bond and equity universe. There has never been a formalised definition of what exactly constitutes an "alternative" investment, and consequently the list of possibilities can seem long when thinking about the potential from either an institutional or private investor perspective. Some have relatively high costs of entry, which effectively act as barriers to entry for individual investors.

• Real estate — from physical bricks and mortar to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
• Private equity — from venture capital to management buyout funds; a look at the unicorn club
• Hedge funds — the pursuit of positive returns in all market environments; absolute return investing and the search for pure alpha
• Commodities — physical or synthetic exposure? From ETFs to commodity futures
• Catastrophe bonds — tradable instruments enabling the transfer of risk from the insurance markets to the capital markets
• Cryptocurrencies — investment or merely a speculative token?