The Alternative Answer: The Nontraditional Investments That Drive the World's Best-Performing Portfolios - Hardcover

Rice, Bob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062257900 ISBN 13: 9780062257901

Publisher: Harper Business, 2013

Synopsis

The Alternative Answer by Bob Rice is the first book to explain the new world of alternative investing strategies, showing how to use these new products for inflation-protected income, risk-adjusted growth, and long-term wealth transfer.

The Yale Endowment keeps only 6% of its investments in US stocks, but its portfolio has produced a 100% gain over the past decade. Indeed, the world’s elite investors have long relied on alternative investments to produce their superior returns. Until now those options were the exclusive purview of institutions and the super wealthy, but today any informed investor can play the same game.

A rainbow of investment options such as timber, startups, MLPs, hedged strategies, managed futures, infrastructure, cat bonds, peer-to-peer lending, farmland, and dozens of other non-traditional strategies can provide dramatically better gains, with less total risk, than the standard choices. In The Alternative Answer, Bob Rice, Bloomberg TV’s Alternative Investment Editor, leads an entertaining and easy-to-understand tour of this world, and suggests specific alternative investments for all four key “jobs” of a portfolio: safely generating more current income; decreasing risks of economic shocks; significantly increasing long-term profits; and protecting purchasing power over time.

Regardless of experience or net worth, readers will learn exactly what to do to substantially improve their investment performance—in the same way that the world’s best investors already do. Stocks and bonds alone aren’t nearly enough. Investors need an Alternative Answer, and now they have it.

About this title

About the Author

Bob Rice is Bloomberg TV's Alternative Investments Editor, the managing partner at Tangent Capital, and a board member of investment advisors with more than $2 billion under management. The positions he has held throughout his multifaceted career have spanned many domains: Wall Street law firm partner; public company CEO; trial lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice; and technology entrepreneur.

From the Back Cover

The first book to explain the new world of alternative investing, showing how anyone can use nontraditional options to significantly increase returns and lower risks

The world's elite investors have long relied on alternative investments to produce superior returns. Until now, these strategies were the exclusive purview of institutions and the superwealthy, but today any informed investor can play the same game.

A rainbow of investment options—timber, start-ups, master limited partnerships (MLPs), hedged strategies, managed futures, infrastructure, peer-to-peer lending, farmland, and dozens of other nontraditional strategies—can provide dramatically better gains, with less total risk, than the standard choices. In The Alternative Answer, Bob Rice, Bloomberg TV's Alternative Investments Editor, leads an entertaining and easy- to-understand tour of this world, and suggests specific alternative investments for all four key "jobs" of a portfolio: safely generating more current income, decreasing risks of economic shocks, significantly increasing long-term profits, and protecting purchasing power over time.

Regardless of experience or net worth, readers will learn exactly how to substantially improve investment performance—in the same way that the world's best investors already do. Stocks and bonds alone aren't nearly enough. Investors need an alternative answer and now they have it.

Reviews

In these hard economic times, in which savings-account yields are at an all-time low, stock-market volatility is a major concern, and real-estate appreciation is a thing of the past, Americans looking for alternatives to preserve or grow wealth may find this book to be a real eye-opener. Rice maintains that the key to long term wealth creation is loss avoidance, and he discusses options for building portfolios with built-in risk protection. The average consumer may not be aware that there are many other viable investment options besides traditional stocks and bonds, including private equity, venture capital, and more. Although hedge funds may have gotten a black eye during the Madoff era, he shows how active risk management using hedging strategies and a panoramic portfolio can help offset potential losses during times when stocks and bonds lose value. The writing is basic enough for novice investors, and ­financial-concept examples are easy to follow. In this fresh look at the old investment rules, the alternatives presented are convincing enough for readers to consider. --Cindy Kryszak

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062257900
• ISBN 13: 9780062257901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288