Most of what Larry talks/writes about seems a bit more promising but the track record of how they perform AFTER Larry talks/writes about them isn't so good. I'm content to watch reinsurance from the sidelines for a while. SHRIX has a 10+ year track record. 5.31% annualized. It better have a similar risk level to cash for me to get very excited about it right now. The index, whatever that is, has a 10 year return of 1.52%. Not sure I can justify paying 1%+ for an asset class with long term returns < 2%. Why are people excited about this? Did they have a really good 2022 or something?The "alternatives" that you mentioned and that you tried are basically volatility laundering instruments in the sense of Cliff Asness, possibly with a questionable illiquidity premium but I doubt it. If looking at alternatives at all, I would look for actually underlying drivers of return that are uncorrelated to the equity markets. Reinsurance risk seems a bit more promising.There are lots of alternative investments out there. Many of them make money. Some of them might offer an illiquidity premium. None of them are mandatory for financial success.
I tried some peer to peer loans. It worked out okay for me. I think I had about 8% annualized returns when all was said and done. In the end I wished I'd used a fund rather than buying loans directly.
I've invested in lots of real estate in various manners including directly, syndications, private funds, and VNQ. Some consider that alternative, others don't. Overall very happy but there have certainly been losing investments.
I've owned minority portions in a number of online businesses which have worked out very well financially, but were never enough money to really matter but dovetailed well with my primary business.
The most interesting alternative I've looked at was viaticals, basically buying whole life insurance policies from people at a better price than their surrender amount but still a low enough price that it provided a solid return once averaged across lots of people. My wife wouldn't go for that one so we didn't.
I'm sure there are dozens more. Most of them I have chosen to watch from the sidelines. The most successful one so far as near as I can tell is Bitcoin. But I still have no idea what its future looks like, just like I didn't in 2011 when I took a pass.
Meanwhile I've met all of my financial goals.
There are no called strikes in investing. You don't have to invest in everything to be successful. It's okay to try something but research it well, limit your investment to a reasonable amount, and keep funding the portfolio adequately and you'll get where you're going whether or not it works out.
Statistics: Posted by White Coat Investor — Sun Oct 20, 2024 10:55 pm — Replies 39 — Views 2794
