Alternative assets

Investments outside the conventional categories of public stocks, bonds and cash. The label covers varied assets and strategies, and its boundaries differ across investors.

Alternative assets in practice

Hypothetical: an investor holds private real estate, private credit and a buyout-fund interest alongside public stocks, bonds and cash. These alternative exposures have different liquidity, leverage and valuation characteristics; they are not one uniform risk category.

  • private equity
  • private credit
  • real estate
  • infrastructure
  • hedge funds

Private equity · Private credit · Real assets · Venture capital · Quantitative easing (QE) · All of the glossary