After the financial crisis in 2008, we started looking further into alternative investments beyond stocks and bonds.  We already had our toe in the water with allocations to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPs), but we thought it would be prudent to investigate other options even further.

At the same time, the number of mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) were launching that pursue alternative strategies.  Over the past year, we have spent a great deal of time trying to understand these strategies and trying to determine whether or not they are appropriate for our clients. 

At this point, we have only added one alternative mutual fund to our Approved List, the AQR Diversified Arbitrage fund (symbol: ADAIX).  Our adoption has been slow to date because even as we become comfortable with the strategies, our clients have been even more slow to stray from traditional stock and bond strategies.   

As I have learned more about alternative strategies in mutual funds and ETFs, I have contributed some articles to Morningstar and Seeking Alpha, two leading financial websites.  Although some of the topics are somewhat esoteric, I thought people might be interested to see what has been published thus far:

1. Momentum Everywhere: An op-ed at Morningstar discussing the lack of adoption of momentum within the financial advisory community

1. New Year's Resolution - Diversification with Arbitrage: An informational piece at Morningstar about the only alternative mutual fund on our Approved List, the AQR Diversified Arbitrage Fund.

1. Why the Long-Short VIX ETN Merits Attention: An article at Seeking Alpha that discusses a new exchange traded note (ETN) that seeks to profit from the term structure of volatility futures using both long and short positions.

1. WisdomTree Builds a Better Mousetrap: An article examining a new ETF from WisdomTree that tracks the same index as a Rydex SGI fund at half the cost.

As we continue to publish articles online in other forums, we will be sure to keep you posted on our own blog with links and a quick summary of the article.

Have a great weekend!