Alternative Reality

Diversification

Diversification has been called the only free lunch in investing.

This idea is based on research showing that diversification, through a combination of assets like stocks and bonds, could reduce volatility without reducing expected return or increase expected return without increasing volatility compared to those individual assets alone. Many investors have taken notice, and today, highly diversified portfolios of global stocks and bonds are readily available to investors at a comparatively low cost. A global stock portfolio can hold thousands of stocks from over 40 countries around the world, and a global bond portfolio can be diversified across bonds issued by many different governments and companies and in many different currencies.
Some investors, in search of additional potential volatility reduction or return enhancement opportunities, may even try to extend the opportunity set beyond stocks and bonds to other assets, many of which are commonly referred to as “alternatives.” The types of offerings labeled as an alternative today are wide and varied. Depending on who you talk with, this category can include but is not limited to, different types of hedge fund strategies, private equity, commodities, and so on. These investments are often marketed as having greater return potential than traditional stocks or bonds or low correlations with other asset classes.

Liquid Alternatives

In recent years, “liquid alternatives” have increased in popularity considerably. This sub-category of alternatives consists of mutual funds that may start from the same building blocks as the global stock and bond market but then select, weight, and even short securities in an attempt to deliver positive returns that differ from the stock and bond markets. Exhibit 1 shows how the growth in several popular classifications of liquid alternative mutual funds in the US has ballooned over the past several years.

The growth in this category of funds is somewhat remarkable given their poor historical performance over the preceding decade. Exhibit 2 illustrates that the annualized return for such strategies over the last decade has tended to be underwhelming when compared to less complicated approaches such as a simple stock or bond index. The return of this category has even failed to keep pace with the most conservative of investments. For example, the average annualized return for these products over the period measured was less than the return of T-bills but with significantly more volatility.



Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Results could vary for different time periods and if the liquid alternative fund universe, calculated by Dimensional using CRSP data, differed. This is for illustrative purposes only and doesn’t represent any specific investment product or account. Indices cannot be invested into directly and do not reflect fees and expenses associated with an actual investment. The fund returns included in the liquid alternative funds average are net of expenses. Please see a fund’s annual report and prospectus for additional information on a specific portfolio’s turnover and the expenses it incurs.
Liquid Alternative Funds Sample includes absolute return, long/short equity, managed futures, and market neutral equity mutual funds from the CRSP Mutual Fund Database after they have reached $50 million in AUM and have at least 36 months of return history. Dimensional calculated annualized return, annualized standard deviation, expense ratio, and annual turnover as an asset-weighted average of the Liquid Alternative Funds Sample. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Source of one-month US Treasury bills: © 2018 Morningstar. Former source of one-month US Treasury bills: Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation, Chicago: Ibbotson And Sinquefield, 1986. Barclays indices © Barclays 2018. Russell data © Russell Investment Group 1995–2018, all rights reserved.

About the Author Doug Finley

Douglas Finley, MS, CFP, AEP, CDFA founded Finley Wealth Advisors in February of 2006, as a Fiduciary Fee-Only Registered Investment Advisor, with the goal of creating a firm that eliminated the conflicts of interest inherent in the financial planner – advisor/client relationship. The firm specializes in wealth management for the middle-class millionaire.

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